


The Emptiness Of Everything

by tb_ll57



Series: The Year Without Trowa [3]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Physical Disability, Post-Endless Waltz, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-24 11:43:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10741026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tb_ll57/pseuds/tb_ll57
Summary: There are still mornings where he wakes fully convinced it never happened. He catches himself with the phone at his ear, already dialing. He tries to sleep in the middle of his bed so he doesn't notice the empty side so much. He has to pile the pillows around him, or he'll find his way back to the left edge by dawn.





	The Emptiness Of Everything

_It took intense persuasion, but Wufei agreed to stay on Earth after the Barton Rebellion. He had an unofficial pardon for whatever role he might have played-- no-one had asked very many questions, and he hadn't offered much. He was surprised at the ready acceptance the other Gundam pilots showed him, when he had never particularly reached out to them, but they were making a strong effort to act as though war had never happened, and there was something liberating about not being under its shadow-- when he remembered he wasn't supposed to be, anyway._

_They spent a full week at a white-sanded beach in the tropics, in a place Wufei had never heard of. All of them were burning their pale colonial hides to a crisp, none of them would venture more than knee-deep in the awe-inspiring blue cape waters, and Winner and Barton had been intent on making a show of themselves for all the universe to see. Wufei did not really approve of that kind of abandon, but even he could see that they weren't just adolescents playing at sexual experimentation. There was a frightening sort of intensity in the way they looked at each other, but then Winner would throw his head back and laugh and Barton would lean in to kiss him, and it was like the sun breaking out from behind the clouds._

_On their last day, they found a cool shady spot beneath palm trees to lay their blankets. Barton and Winner were curled around each other whispering, and Yuy and Maxwell and Wufei shared a bottle of fruit juice before the heat began to work at them, talking about plans-- well, Maxwell talked about plans, but no-one else had any, so then they largely talked about things like whether they would rebuild Sanq right away and would the L3 Liberal Democrats succeed in pushing through a by-election? After a while Yuy lay back with his head on his arms, and Maxwell amused himself by burying him in handfuls of sand, until his legs had disappeared and Wufei began to wonder why exactly Yuy would let Maxwell do that, unless maybe Yuy and Maxwell were like Barton and Winner, that way..._

_Maxwell said, 'I think I'm going to stay here. Earth. I like it here.'_

_Barton looked over lazily. 'We should buy a big house here on the water. We deserve it.'_

_'With tinted windows, thank you very much,' Winner added. He was the most fastidious with sun block, slathering it on every hour. Barton stroked it in for him, with slow languid movements of his hands over Winner's bare skin._

_Maxwell broke Wufei's reverie by flinging a handful of sand at him. Then he reached over Yuy's body, and extended Wufei a sea shell._

_'Pretty,' he said offhandedly._

_Wufei took it carefully. It was pretty. His grandmother had had some mother-of-pearl things, cracked with age and unbearably precious. They were gone now, dust in the cold vacuum._

_He cleared his throat. 'Are you going to bury Yuy completely?'_

_Maxwell turned speculative eyes on the dark-haired boy, who to all appearances had gone to sleep. 'Think he'd let me?'_

_'No,' Yuy said without opening his eyes. 'He won't.'_

_Maxwell tossed the world a bright grin, then flopped backward with a thump. 'Wufei, bury me.'_

_Winner laughed. 'Better not ask that. Wufei'll start at the head, not the feet.'_

_Wufei flushed at their teasing. 'You'll get sand places you don't want,' he said gruffly._

_'Aw, come on. Play with me.'_

_He shifted, but in the end he obeyed. He crouched uncomfortably by Maxwell's body, digging up a cool fist of sand grains. He didn't have much spirit of play, and knew it; he let the handful drop and scatter over Maxwell's red-tinged belly. 'You're crazy.'_

_'Crazy like a fox. Rawr.'_

_Barton was laughing now too. 'Careful, Chang. Duo might eat you right up.'_

_Maxwell provocatively licked his lips. Wufei flushed again, so much his ears and neck heated. He wiped his sandy hand on his suit and walked away a little ways, to stare out at the waves on the ocean's surface._

_When he glanced back, Maxwell lay on his stomach, staring off somewhere else far away._

 

**

 

It is, as with all things Quatre Winner, a fuzzy sort of well-intentionedness that carries the night, despite the painful undertone.

They're rededicating a newly-renovated hospice for him. They're calling it Barton House.

There was money in the will-- Wufei knows, because he helped Trowa write it. Quatre, being Quatre, has matched and doubled it. There's a little ceremony and they pull a curtain from the new door sign, and there's a benefit dinner after, chicken served on plastic plates for five hundred dollars apiece, and a local children's choir sings a medley of Broadway musicals Wufei has never seen and probably never will.

He gets a free spot at the event, of course. Free means that Quatre has paid his ticket-- of course. Not at the same table as Heero and Quatre and his daughter Olivia, who are modestly occupied with the hospice director at Table 2 to the left of the stage, seven tables away from Wufei-- of course. There's no way of knowing for sure if Quatre's the one who sat him there; in fact he rather suspects Heero of stepping in, and Duo's seat is no closer than his, but the point is that they've got seven tables between them, and it's hard not to take that as a slight when five months ago he'd been taking Trowa out of this hospice himself, taking him home to die, and Quatre Winner hadn't even known yet that he was ill.

It's supposed to be a quiet event. Under the radar. It's not fodder for the Friday news cycle, because the attention is on the hospice, not on its benefactor. And that idea lasts as long as it takes some enterprising soul to leak it to the paparazzi.

Of course.

Quatre makes a quiet exit around half ten, and Wufei follows at a discreet distance. There are no uniforms in evidence tonight, at what is a private event, but it's the same old pack instinct that's kept the Gundam Pilots together despite distance and years. Heero's gone through the front, to distract the photographers who have made his face almost as famous as his new partner's. Duo must have gone that direction, too, because when Wufei steps out the kitchen door to the delivery alley, Quatre is there alone, his daughter perched on his hip. They look for all the world like some romantic portrait of familyhood, Quatre's gold hair gleaming in the light of the street lamps, the girl's taffeta dress fluffing over his arm and her little satin shoes dangling by his knees. Wufei watches them silently, not sure even now what he feels, and not sure either if he's going to say anything, until Quatre happens to turn and spy him skulking there.

Well, not 'happens to'. Quatre's always had that sixth sense. It makes Wufei uneasy. He's never really sure how much Quatre knows what he's thinking.

Quatre moves first. He gives a little dip of his head, a stiff nod hello. 'The others go yet?' he asks.

Wufei ventures from the doorway into the alley. 'They're in front,' he answers, no more facile with the English language. 'Talking,' he adds, and disconsolately wishes he could recall how to do that, himself.

'Sounds unpleasant, somehow.' Quatre shifts the girl in his arms. She's sleeping, Wufei sees. Quatre's trying to remove the pinchy-looking headband from her dark hair, at risk of loosing his hold.

'Probably is,' Wufei agrees stiltedly. 'Let me walk you to your car.' He reaches, pure impulse from easier days. The plastic teeth yield to careful tugs, and she sighs when it's gone, still clinging to long strands that Wufei gently frees. Her pink-bow mouth purses in an unconscious frown; it smoothes again when Quatre presses his lips to her forehead. 'She was very grown up today,' Wufei observes.

'She tries so hard, poor thing.'

'She's her father's daughter.'

Quatre's eyes flick up to him. 'Thank you,' he says automatically, but it's subdued, and neither of them know what to say after that.

There's a man in the bushes at the head of the alley. He has a long lense. It takes Wufei a fraction of second to see him there, even less to identify the camera, and then he's moving. He throws a palm up and out. 'Not now,' he calls in warning. 'Get back to the street.'

'Wufei, it's all right.'

The paparazzo isn't heeding him. He's not hiding now, either. He's on his feet, and Wufei can hear the electronic beep of pictures captured digitally and illicitly. 'Did you hear me?' he snaps. He's not an unknown figure himself, and the lense sweeps to his face for several shots before he finally makes it close enough. His hand contacts the camera, and he shoves.

'Assault!' the cameraman cries, and that's when Wufei, too late, recognises him. Arne Belasko. He'd made his name nine years ago stalking Mariemaia Barton, probably with this very camera. A small corner of Wufei's mind, still professionally alert and still capable of dreading the consequences, warns him, but it's too little and he's not inclined to listen over the sudden black fury that fills him.

'Assault?' he says darkly. 'No, this would be assault.' He pulls his fist back, and a moment later it's impacting Belasko's gawky sneering face. The man goes sprawling back, overturning a huddle of rubbish bins with a horrific clatter. Quatre shouts his name and then there are lots of people shouting Quatre's, and the flood of paparazzi have found them like a horde of cockroaches swarming on fresh meat.

'You hit me!' Arne is whining. 'I can't believe you hit me! I'm bleeding!'

Quatre is between them, shoving him back until Wufei digs in his heels. 'He slipped,' he's saying, to Wufei, to Arne, to the crowd of photographers who are loving the confusion. 'I'm sure you noticed the pavement is slippery. If you just go, no-one has to make a big deal.'

'I'm suing, asshole! You always have these thugs around, Winner?'

'Watch your language!' Wufei yells. 'There are children present.'

'Wufei.' He tries to shake Quatre off, but Quatre has a grip of iron on his biceps. Olivia is standing alone on the pavement behind them, staring with her hand at her mouth. 'This moron is invading your privacy!' Wufei grates. 'And your child's.'

'And you're not helping!' Quatre hisses back.

On a sane night, it would have ended there. Arne is still bleating about his near-fatal injuries, but Wufei is letting himself be moved, and Heero and Duo have turned up in the crowd and are pushing their way through. Even as it's happening it has the reeling absurdity of something mad. The pieces fall apart with ludicrous rapidity.

Heero herds Arne out of the alley with wide arms and a glare that should have melted metal. Duo's almost at their side when a woman carrying a microphone trips him, and he stumbles into Wufei. Quatre's halfway to his daughter.

Someone yells, 'Come on, killer, give us something for the cover!'

The insanity breaks loose. Duo makes a wild misinterpretation, and he does it loudly. 'Holy fucking Christ, don't even!' and then there are screams as Wufei reaches into his coat.

'My badge,' Wufei snarls to the glowering police officer, an hour later. 'I was reaching for my badge. See it?' He thrusts open his coat again, pointing to the black and olive ID clipped to his belt.

It happens, sometimes, that cops don't like Preventers. It happens sometimes that they don't like Gundam Pilots, either. Wufei never finds out which one is more offencive to this particular officer. Whichever, it's a perfectly adequate excuse.

'Sir,' the cop asks Arne Belasko, dramatically still clutching his nose, 'do you want to press charges?'

'Hell yeah!'

'You're out of your mind,' Wufei says again. 'You can't be buying this line of garbage.'

'Your badge doesn't protect you from the law, Agent.'

'Who protects good people from creatures like him?'

'If Mr Winner wants he can take out a restraining order. Meanwhile, I think you'd better come with me.'

All four of them are in hot protest, then. Quatre's voice, conciliatory and soothing, is swept under by Heero's angry growl, and Duo easily tops that with a curse that could have made a sailor blush. The officer, a grim smile in place, takes the opportunity they've given him with all evidence of relish.

'If you don't come voluntarily--' he says, and takes out his handcuffs.

If it were a sane night, Wufei probably wouldn't have hit the cop, too. But it's not.

 

Wufei spends the next thirteen hours in custody imagining the headlines in the news. It goes something like 'Preventer Endangers Child In Crazed Assault' or 'Gundam Runs Amok Again'. When he's not imagining that, he imagines-- with crystalline clarity-- exactly what his next conversation with Director Une will sound like. Even his own daydreams don't produce much by way of vindication. It's more than sunk in how badly he's screwed up. He doesn't even bother to ask for his phone call.

There's a stir, finally. It's not quite noon, by his internal clock, and there's been a shift change since they put him in a thankfully unoccupied cell. There's grit in his eyes, and somewhere under the vast awareness of his shameful lack of control, there threatens an intense need to find Quatre and spout an apology in whatever language comes out of his mouth. It's prophetic, then, providential that it's Quatre walking toward his cell, drab in a brown suit and low-brimmed hat that all but hides his face. Wufei clambers off his cot, fisting the cool steel bars. 'Quatre,' he says. 'Quatre, I'm sorry.'

He can't quite help a flinch when Duo pops out behind a policeman.

'Don't you dare be sorry,' Duo starts in, and Wufei closes his eyes. Duo. 'You didn't do anything wrong, or at least not anything the rest of us haven't wanted to do.'

In his intensely frustrating, unbelievably perverse way, Duo probably isn't wrong. But he is. Sorry. Unbelievably.

Quatre takes off the hat to scratch his neck. There's a sideways glance at Duo, but then he's back to not quite meeting Wufei's eyes. 'They’re letting you out,' he murmurs. 'Duo, move over so they can let him out.'

A sinking sensation fills his stomach with a hollow ache. 'How much?'

'We can talk about that later.' An officer-- not the one who arrested Wufei-- unlocks his cell. They gesture him out, and another one has the bag of his things, his belt and shoes and wallet and badge.

'I wasn't arraigned.' He slips into his shoes without unlacing them; Duo balances him with a quick hand to the small of his back. 'How can you supply bail if--'

'He had to bribe three of them,' Duo says, only to be glared into silence by Quatre.

'I have a car in back,' Quatre says. 'I sent a decoy in to the office this morning. We should be able to get you home without--'

Incident. It's all Wufei can do to keep his head level. Duo's hand hovers at his back all the way out of the station house, but Wufei puts one foot in front of the other and still can't imagine a way to make this better.

The car is a limo, a Rolls Royce with a driver in uniform and cushioned benches in back for the passengers. Duo's on top of him, scrambling into the seat beside him. Quatre settles facing them, but his eyes are low, on the hat turning between his hands.

The car pulls out, and they leave the station behind.

'How bad is it?' Wufei asks.

Quatre's golden head bobs as they rock over a speed bump. They sit at a red light for only a moment, and then they're turning left. Downtown. Quatre says, 'It will go away.'

Duo's holding a thermos and a wrapped sandwich. 'Bet they didn't feed you,' he whispers. 'Please.'

He can't bear the thought of food. His stomach is in knots. Quatre really is refusing to look at him. He takes the thermos, and Duo squeezes his knee. 'Thank you,' he says voicelessly.

Duo's pleased. But because he's Duo and he leads with his bad foot half the time, he says then to Quatre, 'I still think it's total crap, giving that guy an interview so he'll leave Wufei out--'

Quatre's frantic 'stop' signal is far too late to stop it. Wufei can't believe what he's hearing. 'Why?' he demands. 'That's the last thing that ass Belasko deserved!'

Quatre answers reluctantly. 'It's not a matter of deserve. It's a matter of getting him to drop charges.'

'I'd rather take my chances in court than have you bargain away your privacy. What did you have to offer the cop I hit for his cooperation? Even your reach only goes so far.'

'The officer has admitted things got a little blown out of proportion,' Quatre replies, so neutral his tone is colourless.

'Dirty fucking cops in every god-damn city,' Duo mutters. 'I wouldn't be surprised if he was Alliance, back in the day.'

'The war's over, Duo.'

'Agreed,' Quatre says flatly. He's probably been dealing with Duo all night. The strain is showing.

'Tell that to dirty cops!'

Wufei lays his hand on Duo's arm. It has the miraculous effect of calming him immediately. 'Please,' Wufei asks him, just to hammer the point home. In answer Duo offers the sandwich again, and he takes it, reward for good behaviour. It's egg salad and watercress, and if it tastes like sawdust to him in this frame of mind, the brilliant smile Duo gives him almost makes it worth choking it down. 'Thanks,' he lies softly. 'It's delicious.'

Quatre's mobile goes off. He says nothing more than his name, and listens quietly; when the phone lowers a moment later, he passes a hand over his eyes and says, 'We have all the pictures, and the video from a waiter with a camera phone.'

Wufei hadn't even seen a waiter. He can barely swallow the lump of bread and egg. 'I'm sorry,' he says again, more dejected even than before. 'Was Olivia upset?'

'Actually, I think you're her new hero. She's already told the twins the story a dozen times.'

He is not reassured by that. 'I'm not sure what kind of lesson she learned from my actions.'

'That you don't always have to lie down for assholes with cameras!' Duo rockets to interject. Then even he seems to realise he's gone over the line. A faint flush spreads rosily over his cheeks. 'Not that a dignified silence is a bad thing, Quat.'

'I only meant to protect you, Quatre. You and Olivia.'

Blue eyes skitter away from his. 'I know, Wufei.'

He makes himself breathe. He makes himself breathe until he can think. About more than finding a hole to crawl into, anyway. 'I appreciate your help,' he says very quietly.

Quatre manages a twitch that might be intended as a smile. 'I'm glad to offer it.'

 

**

 

_When Duo finally woke in the ICU, Wufei was at his bedside. They were only allowed in one at a time, and it had taken substantial bullying to work around the fifteen minute limits, but Wufei had managed. It was as well he did, because the others weren't capable of much resembling rational thought._

_Quatre had been crying. Heero smashed his hand into the wall and had a trip of his own to the ER, to get twelve stitches in his knuckles. Trowa was on a plane flying home, and kept his mobile off, though Wufei had repeatedly told him not to._

_He'd been dozing in and out of wakefulness for hours, when it finally happened. The subtle change in the monitors never registered-- it was a bleary glance at Duo's face, and he just happened to see Duo's eyes open._

_His weary body jolted into action. He sat up, so that his boots thudded on the floor and the magazine on his lap fell. Duo flinched a little at the sound, but Wufei soothed him with a quick touch._

_'Hi,' he said softly._

_Duo blinked. The swelling on his face was just starting to purple, but from the side he almost looked normal, like he shouldn't have been in that bed at all. Wufei tried not to look at the rest of him._

_'They said you could have ice chips,' he whispered. 'I've got some here.'_

_Duo's mouth moved. 'Thirsty,' he mumbled, barely loud enough to hear. Wufei fetched the cup and spoon, loaded it carefully for Duo's bitten lips._

_'Slowly,' he cautioned. 'Don't choke. Is...' He fixed the lay of an IV line on the bed, pulled the blanket higher over Duo's chest. 'Is there pain?'_

_'No. Yes.' Duo's face twisted, his eyes drifting closed. 'Feel funny.'_

_'You're on a morphine drip. You had surgery.' Duo took another spoonful of chips. 'Do you remember?'_

_Almost his entire right side. It would be a blessing if Duo didn't have that memory to carry the rest of his life._

_Duo's head turned a little toward him. There was barely any light, the lamps shielded to give them both rest. It was enough to stare at the bloodying bandages._

_'What happened to Cassidy?' Duo asked, many minutes later._

_He did remember, then. Cassidy had been in the Jeep with him._

_Wufei cleared his throat. 'He sustained a concussion and a few lacerations. They'll observe him tonight and send him home tomorrow.'_

_'That's good.'_

_'They had to take the leg.' He'd thought for hours how to say it right, how to say it the way Duo would need to hear it, but his determination to be compassionate vanished in the moment, into an awkwardly harsh flatness instead. He couldn't even look at it, the stump on display propped up on pillows, an aberration of nature. 'They had to take the leg,' he repeated, and got it a little better, anyway, with Duo's bruised eyes no more comprehending than the first time. 'Just above your knee.'_

_It seemed to take a long time for Duo to blink then, as if his lids were too heavy and he didn't know how to do it. 'My leg?'_

_'I'm sorry. Yes.' He didn't belong in here. It ought to have been one of the others, Quatre who was close to Duo, Heero who had reacted so violently to the news-- someone who knew Duo better, someone who cared so much. It shouldn't have been Duo, who laughed at their minor hurts and said it was good for them to bear in mind they weren't actually immortal. He took Duo's hand, as he imagined a better man would naturally have done, but the angle was difficult, so the most he could do was lace their fingers a little._

_'I can still feel it,' Duo breathed. 'You sure?'_

_'I'm sure. The surgeon said you might have phantom sensation for some time.'_

_'Oh. Thanks, then.'_

_Wufei pressed his lips together. He'd waited thirty-four hours for Duo to wake, and he'd somehow thought, believed, that would bring relief. This was infinitely worse than the waiting had been._

_Duo opened his eyes. 'Was I driving?'_

_'No. Cassidy was.' Wufei fixed the IV line again where it twisted. 'You were hit broadside. No driver could have anticipated or avoided it.'_

_'Oh.'_

_'You're not going to remember any of this tomorrow. You're too drugged.'_

_'Okay. Okay, good.' Duo's face went frowning and drawn. 'I hate morphine,' he said. 'Makes me weird inside.'_

_'But it'll help you sleep. You need to now. Your body has healing to do, okay?'_

_'Okay.' Fainter, just an impression of the words. 'They won't let me be a Preventer without a leg.'_

_'I already talked to Une. You're not being released without a review. That's down the line, Duo.'_

_'Okay.'_

_'I'll be here all night. In case you wake up and want to talk.'_

_Duo stirred a little then. 'I can't feel my hand. They take that off too?'_

_Wufei tightened his fingers over Duo's. 'How's that?'_

_'That's good. Good. Glad I still have hands.'_

_'You have hands. And all the other parts that define you.' His own voice was hoarsening, froggy with the difficulty of speaking normally. It should have been someone in here who said the right things._

_'Okay.' Some breathing. A tear leaked down the side of Duo’s face, almost invisible until it curved his cheek. 'Okay.'_

_Wufei used the cuff of his shirt to wipe it away. 'Okay,' he echoed._

 

**

 

Ex-Alliance cops and an army of mobile dolls couldn't have kept Duo away for more than a few hours. Wufei expects him to show up, and is surprised he makes it all the way to the dinner hour without interruption. Quatre's hand is at work in that, he imagines. Duo has a wicked impression of Quatre's 'Daddy Voice', and Wufei doesn't doubt that after today Duo will have plenty of new fodder. Wufei blames no-one but himself for the disaster, but sometimes Duo's earnestness to make things better can be as overwhelming as the problem he's trying to fix.

Wufei has the door open before Duo can knock. It's six o'clock on the dot. Duo gives him a sheepish grin. 'Hungry yet?' he asks. 'I like your sweater.'

There's a whole feast in his arms, from the number of overstuffed bags. 'Thank you,' Wufei answers, a categorical panegyric to cover the entire twenty-four hours, and lets him in the door. 'I made tea.'

He doesn't have to ask any questions, or lay any careful promptings out between them. Duo starts in with only a deep breath to sustain him.

'It is total bull that you're suspended, everyone agrees.'

'She had to,' Wufei says briefly. The message had been waiting for his arrival home. It hasn't quite sunk in, yet; he's never been so much as reprimanded. But there's a certain sort of peace in receiving a punishment commensurate with his misconduct. He stirs, tugging at his damp ponytail. Duo's changed too, he notices; for once, the gold lamé Buddha shirts are nowhere to be found, the denims have no visible holes suspiciously near the crotch. 'You look nice as well.'

Unaccountably, Duo blushes. It's quite distinct. He opens Wufei's cupboards for plateware, as familiar with Wufei's kitchen as Wufei himself. 'I went by that Moroccan restaurant and got all our favourites. Best hot the oven for the pastilla, though.' Covered dishes emerge one by one from the bags. The last to out is a pair of newspapers, though, and three of the gossip rag magazines that sold by the checkout counters of convenience stores.

'See?' Duo says. 'Not a word about it.'

The depression he's been fighting all day threatens again. 'It cost him a fortune, didn't it?'

Duo touches his hand, and they sit together at the table. Duo's face is serious, now, and he keeps his hold on Wufei's wrist, gentler than he's been since the funeral, when he'd held Wufei just like that. 'Not a fortune,' he murmurs. 'He said his publicist deals with stuff like this all the time. He just made deals with them. Like that interview.'

'It's kind of disgusting.'

'I know. But it's done. It's over. It was really great, what you tried to do.'

'I did it stupidly.' He tugs free. The pastilla is warm enough still, if not steaming. He's still not hungry, but in the face of Duo's effort he knows he'll have to try. He licks a trace of icing sugar from his thumb as he sets it on the table. 'You don't trust me with him still.'

Duo's head comes up. He licks his lips. 'Did it show?'

'A little.'

'It's not that I don't trust you.'

'What is it then? Because it seems exactly like you don't trust me. You never would have thought Heero was reaching for his gun in a crowd of civilians. You barely let me get a word out in the limo--'

'I do trust you! I just... It's just that you're still not great with each other, I mean look at last night, you were so on edge you punched out a reporter and a cop!'

'We haven't had more than a few seconds alone together since the funeral. What happened with that reporter had nothing to do with me being on edge with Quatre.'

Mute distress, then. There was a time when a harsh word from Wufei would only have produced laughter. A strange swing of power, that; in fact that's the only cross word Duo's said about him in several years, really, since--

He should have used the privacy to meditate. He regulates his breaths, inhale and exhale, until his heart obeys his direction and he can feel calm spread from his chest to his limbs.

'Eat your dinner, Duo.'

'I'm not as hungry as I thought.' Duo is staring out at the sunset through the window. 'You know me, eyes are always bigger than my stomach.'

'Duo.' Exhale. 'I'm sorry.'

'For what? Speaking your mind? Telling me to mind my own fucking business?' Duo turns back to him, but his eyes drop to Wufei's hand, and then they widen dramatically. 'Holy shit, you split your knuckles.'

He hides it quickly in his lap. 'It's fine.'

Oh no, he doesn't get away with that. Duo Maxwell goes springing into action. Nothing will do but that he personally rubs ointment on Wufei's poor blessed hand. The process involves a certain inescapable intimacy, and if Duo was the one to blush before, Wufei is as red as if he'd been in the sun all day by the time it's over. Duo sits so close that their knees touch.

'Mad at me?' Wufei asks him.

'I'm never mad at you.' Duo releases him at that. He turns to the sink to wash his hands.

Wufei watches the swing of the braid. He'd used to keep it so neat. It still startles him sometimes to see it as it is now, tangled, poorly plaited, sharply askant over whichever shoulder Duo had done it that morning. Week. Even tonight, when it's obviously freshly cleaned, it cries out for a dedicated brushing.

'Since when?'

'Since when what?' Duo leans on the sink. They really ought to turn on the overhead light, with the sun going down. It's a pretty angle, though, the way the orange and pink from the window catches the underside of Duo's eyelashes.

'Since when are you never mad at me.'

'I owe it to you,' Duo says easily. 'To try to understand where you're coming from. So I do. And most of the time, I get it. So why would I be angry ever?'

He sips the cold tea long forgotten before him. 'Because I'm difficult.'

'So am I.'

'You are.' Wufei smiles. 'Remind me again why I keep you around?'

'Because I feed you, and take care of you, and I'm also mancandy for the eyes.'

Wufei chokes.

'Sorry. There I go again, foot in mouth disease. I swear, sometimes I just open my mouth and wait for stuff to fall out.'

'It's fine.' His neck and cheeks are hot again. 'I just never know how to respond to things like that.'

'Well, in the affirmative would be nice.' Duo gives him a lopsided grin that's all crafted mask, nothing real. 'Well, you're probably tired. I've fed you, so now I'll get out of your hair, yeah?'

'I think you're mancandy, Duo,' he says solemnly.

Duo freezes in place for just a second. A little flicker of a smile turns up his mouth, but it's more sad than anything else, strangely. 'Oh, you tease,' he answers lightly.

Wufei walks him to the door. Courtesy would have him protest, since Duo did, actually, feed him, or try to, but exhaustion is finally overcoming nerves. He wants to fall into bed and even try to sleep in tomorrow, since he hasn't anywhere to be now.

'I'll check on you after work,' Duo says. He shrugs into his coat. 'Hey, Wufei...'

'What?'

'It's okay to still be sad about him. No-one's got a stop-watch.'

He's weak enough, in that moment, to have to fight for a smooth expression. 'Good night, Duo.'

 

**

 

_There was a card on the bedside table that was probably bought by Quatre's secretary, though it at least bore Quatre's real signature. A box of grocery-store candy canes sat beside it, half empty, but there weren't any wrappers in the rubbish bin. Wufei suspected they'd been finding their way into the pockets of nurses. There was a string of fairy lights over the door, and plastic mistletoe hanging from a rigged paperclip, but the efforts only drew attention to the stark loneliness of the room. Thank God, Wufei thought, that he'd remembered in time._

_'Hello, Shilpa,' he greeted the nurse. All the staff were familiar with him, these days, though he hadn't come as often lately, stuck with the usual pile-up of wintertime conspiracies and coups that all needed the sure hand of an experienced Preventer. Heero had been distracted, distinctly unenthusiastic, and Trowa had got stuck in the Sudan, negotiating his way out of an embassy seizure. Quatre had made an effort to cover their absences, but Duo had sat alone in hospital now for a solid two weeks without visitors. There was a brittle quality to the way Duo looked at him, now, that didn't quite accuse-- he knew, they all knew, that Duo didn't expect or demand that they be there, but it was still hard for him to be alone._

_Wufei placed the box he carried on Duo's lap, sure to let the weight rest on Duo's good leg, away from the painful stump of his right. 'Say hello to me, Duo.'_

_Duo's eyes were suspicious, the skin tight, bruised-looking. The morphine bag was back on the stand. Shilpa shook her head ever so faintly. Duo said, 'I haven't even decided yet if I'm going to be bitter and drive all of you away and suffer in sullen silence for the rest of my life, and here you come walking in the door at eleven-fifteen. Just impulse?'_

_'I didn't want either of us to spend tonight alone,' he evaded. Duo's fingers picked at the bright silver ribbon on the present. The woman who'd wrapped it at the store had added a little gold ornament, a tiny bulb. 'I remembered how Christmas was always important to you,' Wufei added._

_'Yeah, and for years you flat-out refused to come to my things.' Duo's mouth twisted. Subtly-- Wufei almost missed it-- his other hand was hidden by a fold of the sheet-- he depressed the trigger for the morphine._

_Wufei hid his sadness. 'I swear to you, nothing I will ever do with you will be because of your leg.' He gestured Shilpa to the wheelchair in the corner. 'He can go to the chapel service?' He'd seen the priest inside readying the little room._

_'You don't have to take me,' Duo began._

_'It's Christmas. This is what one does at Christmas.' It took both of them, Shilpa keeping the IV lines clear, Wufei lifting as gingerly as possible, but they got him propped in the chair with a cushion under his hips and a thick blanket to keep him warm. The process visibly exhausted him, but Wufei thought it would be good for him. Too much time staring at the same walls could drive anyone a little mad, and Duo had a notoriously short tolerance for boredom. Duo even managed a little smile for him. Pleased, Wufei rewarded him by honouring the mistletoe above the door, and dropping a spontaneous small kiss to his forehead. Duo flushed a dusky red. Wufei enjoyed the unexpected triumph. Even these days, it wasn't often that one could get the drop on Duo Maxwell._

_The chapel was quite small, but it still seemed vastly empty, with only a few patients and their accompanying nurses to fill the pews. The staff had done their best to get the majority of the patients out before the holidays, and most of those left wouldn't be able to leave their rooms. The service itself seemed rather dull to Wufei, who admittedly had not attended any Christian services before. There were long readings from the Bible, and the priest gave an even longer homily on the struggle to maintain faith in the face of extremity. Twice he caught Duo using the morphine trigger, and determined that there would be no lingering after they were done._

_Just when he thought it was over, though, the nurse who'd risen picked up a basket and came down the pews, handing out little candles and loose sheets of paper. They were the lyrics to hymns. Wufei moved closer to Duo so they could share one of the sheets, and a nurse dimmed the lights. The priest turned on a CD player from the front, and slightly metallic-sounding piano music emerged from the wall-mounted speakers._

_The tune was familiar. There was no avoiding some Christmas accoutrements. He didn't know the words, however, and though Duo's lips moved in time with everyone else as they began to sing, no sound emerged. The nurse came by again to light their candles with a match, and he had to let Duo take the sheet in the shuffle. Then, startling him, a hand suddenly curled around his. Duo._

_He never asked why. It wasn't the sort of thing that really needed an answer._

 

**

 

'How do you spell “disestablishment”?' Duo asks.

Wufei volunteers it letter by letter, frowning down at Duo's overly large remote control as he tries to make it skip the commercials in the evening newscast. 'You should invest in a dictionary.'

'You have to know how to spell something to look it up,' Duo points out. His fingers produce a soft, lulling stream of clicks as he types. The laptop balanced on his thighs gives off a certain amount of heat, as well, having been left on too long; Wufei can feel the hot breeze created by expelled air from the side fans. 'How do you spell 'anarchy'? Never mind. I'll just say chaos.'

'That's with a “ch”, not a “k”,' Wufei teases, and gives up trying to figure out Duo's television. He doesn't ever like the news, anyway. 'Is that for the office?'

'Personal project.'

Wufei aims for a glimpse of the screen. It's a word processing programme. Filled with paragraphs, many of them annotated with footnotes at the bottom of the page. 'You're writing something?'

It is, perhaps, prying. Except that Duo rarely observes the spirit of privacy, and never has. The fact that Duo invites him over after work so regularly has meant, lately, that they spend hours involved in their own private pursuits anyway, coming together for dinner when they're done. Wufei suspects Duo gets bored, alone in his apartment, even with the wealth of technological distractions.

And anyway, Duo always answers immediately. People with nothing to hide can do that.

'I'm writing it the way it really happened,' Duo says, and tilts the screen so Wufei can see it. 'Or at least what I remember, which may or may not be the truth anymore, assuming it ever was. I pretty much expect it to get panned.'

'It', then, is the war. Wufei is surprised by this. 'You really want to relive this again?' he says slowly. Other objections occur-- it's sure to be controversial, and their lives are finally quiet; and can Duo really be expected to speak for all of them? Not that he specifically said he was. Specially said he wasn't, actually.

'Honestly?' Duo resumes typing as he speaks. 'I kind of was already thinking about it all the time. Writing it down kind of... helped it all settle, I think. I was going to just do it for me, but Trowa--' He stops, too late.

'Trowa?' Wufei is fully focused now.

Duo sucks in a breath through the nose and goes back to writing. 'I told him about it once. He said I should try to get it published. I was thinking at first like an article or something. Just grew from there.'

There is something in that revelation worth mulling. Of all the twisty, complicated relationships spanning their five-way friendship, there had only ever been the most tenuous connection between Trowa and Duo. No overt dislike, but no emotional connection, either, even in Trowa's stiltedly reluctant way, or Duo's bullheaded loyalism. Of course, Duo had taken his shifts once Trowa was confined to his home. He was the only one of them who cooked, really. He'd always left a freezer full of ready meals. Wufei had been under the strong impression that the cooking was a good excuse not to talk. Though it obviously was not intended as a conference of profound and consolatory remembrance, it's hard not to take it as such. Every little tidbit unthinkingly offered up has taken on a shade of mystique, lately. He clings childishly to each of them, pieces of a puzzle he feels an imperative to solve.

Puzzles go back in the box, when they're done. He has the nightmarish impression, sometimes, that that's what he's doing. Hurrying to finish it so he can put it away for good. He tries not to recognise it in himself.

He takes up the clicker again, a graceless way to hide the sudden restlessness of his hands. There's a mindless unformed need to speak, to pronounce something that will sufficiently-- sufficiently end the conversation, but mark it, as well. He comes up with something vague enough not to raise suspicion, he hopes, true enough to put an identity on this particular moment in his own mind.

He says, 'I think Trowa liked that about you. How you don't let things go that ought to be kept.' He gets the screen, no volume; it's a cartoon channel, unsurprisingly. 'He always had the most faith in you. You were the stable, dependable one. Unchanging.'

Duo snorts. He saves the file and closes it.

'It's not funny.' Wufei drops his eyes to a very minute study of the little buttons, not sure of Duo's reaction, but compelled to walk the road of his own running mouth anyway. 'He was right, you know.'

'You're a dear, but that's codswallop.'

'You object?'

'Not to come down on you in an honest moment or anything, but did you ever think that kind of put some pressure on?'

It certainly had not occurred, and despite the fond tone, there's an instinctive reaction to being attacked, old nerves a little too worn these past months from fighting off his own phantoms. Duo has a way of looking him-- everyone-- straight in the eye, if he has to step on your feet to do it. It is not something Wufei welcomes.

So they dance. Again. It's a familiar set of moves and Wufei slips into his role with the ease of eleven months of practise. He's on his feet, out of Duo's range, walking to the bookcase. Now is when he picks up a book as if he's never seen it before, though he's read all of Duo's collection. Now is when he pretends the pages require his full attention, when he pretends he hasn't noticed the tension between them. Duo will back down. Duo will make an excuse of his own, need to start dinner, wash up, check with the super about something. For a man who doesn't lie, Duo has invented a dozen ways to give Wufei room to breathe when he needs it. He needs it.

Unwelcome shock, then, when Duo ignores the unwritten rules, and says, 'Since we're talking about me, this time, I don't really think you need to go running away.'

Rude. Duo enjoys being rude, but it's not usually aimed at Wufei. He reaches for the same book he always does, one that he gave to Duo for some holiday forgotten now. Farewell, My Concubine, by Lilian Lee. His fingers know the cracks on the spine, the dogeared cover. He's read it so often here he knows the words without reading them.

_After all, life is just a play. Or an opera. It would be easier for all of us if we could only watch the highlights. Instead, we must endure convoluted plot twists, and excruciating moments of suspense. We sit in the dark, threatened by vague menaces. Those of us in the audience can always walk out; but the players have no choice. Once the curtain goes up they have to perform from beginning to end. They have nowhere to hide._

'Fine,' Duo says. Wufei hears the click of keys again. 'I was thinking of ordering Mexican. I'm in the mood for tamales.'

'Duo.'

'Either talk to me or stand there and read. I lost my damn leg, man.' He should look. He should look now, because you don't not look when Duo, when a friend says that, he should. He means to. He doesn't, though, and Duo goes on after an excruciating, disappointed pause.

'Not to mention all the shit before that that even made me a Gundam pilot. Of course I fucking changed. I change all the time, and if I looked fucking stable while I was doing it, that's because I had fifteen designer drugs in me for two years after the accident. And all of you chattering away at me about how it's so great that good old Duo is always the dependable one?'

The sound of the keys resumes. Tiny taps in rapid succession.

'Some of those things are surface, and you know it. The rest... you never failed any of us. That was his point.' _Yu Ji is singing an aria to him. 'My lord is doomed; I have nowhere to run.' His life is over, and she will choose not to go on living._ 'It was everyone's point. We failed you.'

'You didn't,' Duo says, somewhere behind him. 'Sorry.'

'Then you asked too little of us.'

'It's not about asking for anything.' A sigh, soft and resigned. 'You should read some of this, some time. I even interviewed Trowa. Before.'

'I'd like that.'

'I'll leave the laptop out.'

Saving him, once again. His personal defender, sheltering him from the slings and arrows, even when Duo himself is the one who fired them. There's steps, more a sense of weight on the carpet than any noise, and Duo is at his back then. Wufei relaxes at the arm that comes about his shoulders. Then Duo busses him firmly on the temple.

'I suck sometimes. If I'm being a dipwad, just give me a swift kick in the ass.'

The kiss leaves him rather warm and astonished. This is new. And, embarrassingly, his imagination, only moments ago content to wallow in the past, conjures in brilliant detail what might follow with familiar touch.

Curiosity only. The natural reaction of a body in enforced chastity for too long. Duo is his friend, friend only, waiting for him to meet his eyes because that's what men, even gay men, do together-- not whatever fanciful acts Wufei might be currently entertaining.

 

**

 

_Duo answered his knock wearing the same clothes he'd been in the last time Wufei had seen him, his crutches propped under his arms and a mutinous expression on his face. Then he turned about and went back to his couch, leaving Wufei standing in the doorway._

_So Wufei let himself in. 'What,' he began, letting the door slam just a little with a flip of his hand, 'is wrong with you?'_

_'Don't yell at me,' Duo said. 'I have a headache.' He dropped the crutches awkwardly as he settled and pulled a wrinkled afghan over him._

_'I'm not yelling.' He modulated his voice down anyway. Duo's apartment, never particularly neat, had the stale feel of a place not much kept up. There were several drinking glasses on the coffee table by Duo's couch, two boxes of tissues and the phone cord, notably unplugged from the phone, which explained why no-one had been able to reach him for two weeks. 'When did you last eat?'_

_'Not hungry. I let you in. You don't have to do stuff.'_

_'I will shank you like a jailhouse snitch,' the television announced. Duo turned it off and crammed a couch pillow under his head. Wufei watched him for a minute-- five minutes-- wondering if Duo would say anything else, but he never did. Eventually Wufei tired of being ignored, and went into the kitchen. The refrigerator was nearly empty, which meant Duo hadn't let anyone shop for him and had stopped doing it online like he'd promised. Wufei pinched a spot or two of mould from the bread and sliced a cucumber for sandwiches. It wasn't much, but it would put a little something easy to digest in Duo's stomach. There was, at least, tea in the cupboard. Any improvement was still improvement._

_'Sit up and eat,' he said, and put the plate in front of Duo._

_It got a response, at least. Duo fumbled out an arm for the sandwich, left a huge bite in one side of it, slapped it back down and lay back._

_Wufei drew a deep breath for patience, and sat on the coffee table. 'You missed the weekly dinners twice in a row. Talk to me.'_

_Duo pointed to his full mouth. He wasn't making much effort to chew quickly. Wufei poured two cups out of the kettle, a nice gunpowder green to give him a little energy, and made himself wait in silence for Duo to make the next move._

_An expected one, sadly. Duo waited until the last possible moment to swallow, and then he grabbed the sandwich fast for another bite._

_'I can wait,' Wufei said. 'The sandwich is finite.'_

_Duo sighed. 'What do you want me to say.'_

_'How long do you plan on isolating yourself?'_

_'Everyone misses the stupid dinners once in a while. Heero misses them half the damn year.'_

_'Maybe so, but you never do. Now you've missed two.'_

_'Everyone spends the whole time bitching about being there anyway.'_

_'Stop. Making. Excuses.'_

_'Fine!' Duo yelled. 'They cut off my leg and I can't walk to the fucking bus!'_

_Wufei kept all expression from his face but for a raised eyebrow, and he most certainly did not look at the painfully flat blanket where Duo's leg ought to have been. Blandly he said, 'Then next time I'll pick you up. Anything else?'_

_Duo stared at him. But then he grudgingly laughed, and Wufei breathed an internal sigh of relief. 'Why didn't you just call?' he asked, more gently._

_'I'm just tired, Wufei. I can barely get out of bed.'_

_He did sound tired. Worse than tired. Wufei played with his tea mug. 'Move in with me,' he suggested finally. 'Let me take care of you.'_

_'Your boyfriend might object.'_

_'We don't live together.'_

_'Yeah, and I don't want to become the reason for that.'_

_'There are reasons why we don't and you won't ever have anything to do with them.'_

_Unaccountably Duo's eyes fell away from his. He pulled the afghan over his head like a hood. Wufei wondered at him._

_'Sit up and drink your tea.'_

_Duo sighed, but he took the mug. 'You know you only made it in the door because it's you.'_

_'You wouldn't have turned Heero away.'_

_'Watch me. I mean it. So don't bully me.'_

_'I'm not going to coddle you either. You don't need it.'_

_He could see the uncertain movement of Duo's eyes beneath the long brown lashes. The hand clenched around the mug was white-knuckled._

_'You want to go out somewhere?' Duo said suddenly. 'Find a really skanky club, get really stinking drunk? You think Ecstasy goes bad? I've got a stash somewhere that's eight years old.'_

_Wufei moved to the edge of the couch and pulled Duo up into his arms. They rarely embraced, had rarely touched until two years ago, and it still had the ability to render both of them awkward and silent. But for once Wufei had been sure it was the right thing to do, and even with Duo bony and smelling like musty couch, it was worth it._

_'I don't want to go dancing,' he said._

_'It's okay,' Duo answered. 'I'm all left foot, anyway.'_

 

**

 

When it started with Trowa, it happened with great deliberateness. Both of them chose to enter into it; both of them chose to be quite open about their reasons, and the reasons were that it was convenient, simple, and easily accomplished. Duo would-- had-- called it a one-night-stand that lasted six months. But the six months of convenience, simplicity, and ease of accomplishment gradually became twelve months of the same, then twenty-four. They made it to thirty-six before Trowa got the diagnosis, and their bedroom alliance was suddenly no longer any of the things it had been before.

When it starts again with Duo, it's completely different. Duo might have seemed like the straight-forward one, but he comes at it entirely sideways, so drastic a circumlocution that Wufei is hardly embarrassed to have missed it happening. Oh, the hints are building a recognisable structure, now, Wufei isn't completely blind-- yet when the admission crowns the newly open window Duo's made of himself like a light on a dark night, Wufei still finds himself in the shock of sheer unanticipation.

It begins with their ongoing non-conversation about How To Deal. It's been fits and bursts for months, careful negotiations that started after Quatre came back to Earth to and fell into Heero's arms as if it were fated all along. It has to do with resentment-- Duo's, not his, which is something he doesn't understand and is afraid to ask-- with grief-- his, most definitely, which Duo is not afraid to ask about and most definitely is not afraid to tell him how to live with.

Because, Duo says, the point is living with it. It's sad Trowa's dead, but he's dead, and we need to reconfigure our family to flank aft on this and support the vanguard.

It's the word almost buried in that which catches him-- family.

Unrealistic timeline, Wufei says, taking gruff comfort in the shorthand Duo's handed him.

Slightly, Duo admits, but the way he figures, they've been mulling on this shit for a decade. It ain't new.

Trowa's death is. Five months later. There are still mornings where he wakes fully convinced it never happened. He catches himself with the phone at his ear, already dialing. He tries to sleep in the middle of his bed so he doesn't notice the empty side so much. He has to pile the pillows around him, or he'll find his way back to the left edge by dawn.

You don't have to stop grieving but you shouldn't stop doing everything else, is Duo's point.

Has anyone? The very notion affronts him. He'd barely taken time off work. Less than a week.

Not, Duo admits, in terms of day to day function. But Wufei's not talking to Quatre, Quatre's not talking to anyone else, Heero's walking around with open wounds. And Duo's the babysitter.

'Which is not,' Duo adds sourly, 'my favourite activity.'

'You're full of shit, is what you are,' Wufei retorts, displeased. 'You're not our keeper.'

'No reason for me not to be. I hereby appoint myself.'

It's unfortunate that Duo likes to have this argument in full view of everyone in Wufei's department. Agents who never once asked Wufei for the slightest of personal detail are now painfully familiar with intimate aspects of his life. Of Duo's life, but Duo doesn't care how people see him, and is obstinately idiotic in failing to understand why Wufei might.

Thirteen pairs of eyes watching. Wufei sets his jaw and glares Duo down. At his height and slender build, Wufei has learnt no few tricks for wringing respect from agents head and shoulders taller, decades older, and higher ranking. His eyes alone have cindered officers, dogs, and small children.

Duo glares back. Then, ever so slowly, he crosses his eyes and sticks out his tongue. In front of thirteen agents and Une, walking through the department just in time to see. And Wufei breaks.

'What is that? Don't. It's not funny.'

Duo adds wiggling hands coming out of his ears. 'Nyah.'

'You're such a child.' Against his will. Entirely against his will. He actually laughs aloud, for the first time in longer than he can remember. There's a distinct sigh of relief, somewhere in the office, and Une smiles a strange private smile as she leaves again.

'I just don't see any reason not to laugh at life,' Duo says. 'Laughing's good for you. It burns calories.'

'You eat incessantly and you're rail thin. I don't think you need to worry about calories.'

'It was a generalisation, not my personal diet plan. And yes, I am about to add that sex burns calories, too. And it does. Vigorous, back-breaking sex, anyway. But you'd rather ride a bike, I guess.'

'Were you offering me sex?' Wufei ripostes.

'I've been offering you sex since we were fifteen.'

The wind, as Duo might say, goes out of his sails. His brief reprieve from the eavesdropping of his fellows is over in a rush of awareness. 'You have?'

'I can name dates and times.'

He's desperate for this to be nothing more than a particularly mortifying form of Duo's sharp-tongued teasing. 'How did it escape my notice,' he says, trying to be funny himself, and sounding only hoarse instead.

'You're pretty dense. Also, stupid.'

'I was focussed.'

'I'll say.' A ragged lock loose from Duo's tatty braid wraps about a finger, subjected to sharp white teeth. It swings damply when he lets it fall from his mouth. 'I was kinda bummed you went for Trowa, not me. Didn't blame you. You worked well together.'

With everyone and God as witness. And yet it's not a joke, and trying to pass it off as one would be dishonourable-- he knows when Duo is serious, and this is deadly serious-- and cruel, too, although that's his first desperate impulse. Potts and Liezar aren't even pretending to work now, locked on the action at Wufei's desk. Evie Shortall is staring with great interest and what looks like jealousy.

Jealousy. It occurs to him that perhaps this is reason to be jealous. Duo is vivacious, if you're being kind, and impossible to ignore, if you're being honest. Duo is handsome, despite the wrinkles in his uniform and the windblown look that arises more from an aversion to mirrors than a love of the outdoors. People laugh with Duo, not at him, and he is intelligent and energetic and intense. No small thing, having a man like that interested in you.

He staples the papers he's been holding-- clenching-- since Duo waltzed in to demand his attention. 'Why didn't you ever say anything?'

'Why?' Duo shrugs. 'If you were interested, I would have known. You weren't. No point embarrassing us both.'

No point indeed. His and Duo's idea of embarrassing situations are perhaps differently defined. He places the documents in his outbox, marked for the mailroom to be sent to Wei Yang at the Hong Kong branch, some trivial nonsense about troop movements, information so old as to be useless; but Preventers these days are as much bureaucrats as fighter pilots, diligently typing their memos for the official record. The man leaning on his desk is the one who sent him the memo in the first place, marked 'Administration Says So' with a smiley face sticking out its tongue. He'd smiled at that. He smiled at much of what Duo did. Not this.

At length, Wufei says, 'I'm sorry.'

Duo makes a face much like the one he drew. 'Please. Why? You didn't do it on purpose.'

'Does that make a difference?' he asks seriously. It wouldn't for him. He can't believe how calm Duo is in the face of a personal-- unbearably personal-- humiliation. He would feel humiliated, if it were him confessing. He never would have confessed.

But Duo was already smiling again. 'Well, I'm actually not sure how you not-like someone on purpose, so maybe not.'

'I like you,' he began.

'I know.'

Wufei throws up his hands, frustrated before he can even sort his own sentences.

Duo slides into the chair beside Wufei's, then. It's a silent signal that the show is over. As if a curtain of privacy has been drawn, they are suddenly encapsuled in the usual chatter of the work space. The other agents are making a point of not-listening now. Such is Duo's power over the universe.

Very soberly, Duo says, 'You were there when the leg thing happened. I was really glad. I enjoyed having you there, you know, as much as you can enjoy a thing like that.'

So long ago as that? More than five years ago, that was, now. Nearer to six. He hadn't even been with Trowa, then. It had been a good two years after the accident when Trowa had made his first proposition. 'Of course I was going to be there,' he says, inadequate, and Duo jumps on it.

'It's not “of course”. The others weren't. Not like that. Came in and stood around the bed trying to act like there wasn't an eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room, like they weren't thinking my life was over cause I lost a fuckin' god-given metre off my body. You didn't do that. It was nice. It was even kind of gallant. I'm just saying, I guess, I guess I just kind of had some hopes after that, but being your friend, that's my plan. The gorilla moved in with you. So I'll be here to tell it to fuck off.'

His mind sees the leap in the logic of that. In the compression of time, skipping important things, not saying important things. The message, though, the message is a clarion. It freezes his breath in his lungs.

'I'm not ready to love like that again.' He says it so quietly he barely hears himself.

Duo's eyes stare unblinking into his for a long time, then. The lashes come down like a punctuation mark, with finality. 'Maybe I'm the gorilla in the room. I know, Wufei. I'm not here to ask for anything.'

He knows. There's a well of selflessness in Duo, sometimes, that they're all afraid to look into. Trowa never had that. He doesn't.

The pause goes on forever, but Duo doesn't flee. There's no retreat in him at all. He remarks, at normal volume again, 'You ever notice how we all have number names?'

Wufei doesn't quite have the wherewithal to laugh. He sees what Duo's doing, and accepts the implicit offer, but his smile sits uneasily. 'Do we?'

'Well, kind of. If you stretch it.'

'Explain it to me,' he asks, playing along.

'Duo. Two.' Two fingers stretch up, the ones in the brace. He hasn't even seen the braces for years, but now in the light of Duo's confession he sees them anew, and the way his trouser leg stretches tight against the outline of the prosthetic high on his thigh, like the hard plastic outline of his elbow. The grin in place is as usual, bright and dimpled in the right cheek. The eyes above it are solemn.

'Wufei, root “wu”, which is five.' Five fingers. 'Quatre. Quarter. Four. I haven't figured out what “Heero” is yet.'

The list ends there. Neither of them say the missing name.

 

**

 

_When Heero and Duo showed up together at Umi's, it was hard not to notice there was something radically different. Duo was bouncing and glowing, and Heero kept blushing oddly whenever he looked at Duo. It made Wufei cranky and jealous._

_It didn't thrill Trowa, either. 'They finally fucked,' he muttered in Wufei's ear. 'Glory hallelujah.'_

_'We didn't sleep together!' Heero said anxiously. 'Stop looking at-- shut up.'_

_Wufei tried not to sound too sharp, but didn't much manage. 'Are you feeling well? You look flushed.'_

_Duo was back from the bar humming a merry tune. He nudged up broadly against Heero's shoulder and hit him in the boot with the ferule of his crutch. 'He needs a drink, is what he needs. Let Santa Claus provide!' He pulled a precariously perched beer from his pocket and found another in his coat for himself. 'Hey, Wufei, Trowa.'_

_'Glad you could come this week,' Wufei said stiffly._

_'So'm I.' Duo drained half his drink in three long gulps. 'They planning on seating us any time this century? They have a “cripples must stand” policy?'_

_Wufei shot him an evil glare for using that word. They'd all been incredibly careful not to use that word, and Duo had just broadcast it so loudly that heads had turned to look. And Duo was wearing a pair of shorts that made it more than obvious he was missing a leg, if the crutches weren't advertisement enough. But if anything Duo seemed to bask in the awkward attention he was getting, and exchanged his empty beer for a third he tugged from an inside pocket._

_Trowa made himself scarce, headed for the hostess to hurry their table along. Heero was staring so hard at the lobster tank it might well have exploded under the pressure. Wufei leant in to Duo and demanded, sotto voce, 'Are you high?'_

_'Yes,' Duo said brightly._

_Wufei blinked in stupefaction. 'Are you really?'_

_Duo brushed Wufei's elbow with a knuckle. 'Relax. I talked to my doctor. They changed my meds. I feel a lot better.'_

_Obviously. 'Okay,' Wufei agreed slowly. 'I'm glad you took the initiative to do that. What did they switch you to?'_

_'Oxycontin. OH, I almost forgot. I have good news. They're going to let me back to work.'_

_'What-- that's great.' It took a moment to absorb that. Last week there'd been no mention at all of work-- nor any probability of it, for a man who couldn't leave his couch. Duo could have stayed on disability for years, if he'd wanted. The rest of his life, probably._

_'When?' Trowa asked._

_'I can start in two weeks.'_

_'What do they have you doing?' Trowa's arm settled over Wufei's shoulders._

_'Desk jockey,' Heero grunted._

_'It's not desk jockey. I'm taking over for Arlene up in Admin.'_

_Wufei mustered himself. 'You'll be back at work. That's the important part. One step at a time.'_

_'Yeah. I mean, it's not active duty, but baby steps. Ha-- well, baby hops, or limps, or whatever.'_

_'Why do you keep saying that? That you're a cripple.'_

_'Wu,' Trowa murmured at him._

_Duo only shrugged though, his attention caught by something behind them. 'Sorry, starving. I don't see why I shouldn't say it. It's the truth. Better I get used to it than everyone dance around it, don't you think? Besides, I didn't tell the world not to look at me before. So they can damn well look at me now.'_

 

**

 

They are having The Conversation again. It stems from genuine error. Wufei put on Trowa's shirt. By accident. Duo doesn't accept the 'accident' qualifier. Wufei doesn't accept that Duo knows by some rabidly attentive sixth sense that it's Trowa's shirt and not his, when he had to check to the tag to realise it was true.

It's running the same course it always does, escalating right on schedule, until Wufei gets to his feet and walks to the bookshelf. He's reaching for the same book, until he sees it's gone. There's a gaping hole where it sat before.

'I'm reading it,' Duo says behind him. 'Look. What do I care if you wear his clothes? I'm just saying it says something that you keep them all in your closet still. And I'm just saying--'

'You are always just saying, Duo. Not everyone wants to listen.'

'Too freaking bad.'

They haven't had The Conversation since Duo's confession, two months ago. It's been uncomfortably central to Wufei's thoughts. He entertains the fancy he hasn't let it change their relationship.

'Why are you reading that book?' he asks, and can't decide on another to pretend to read. 'Because I was reading it?' He must have stood in this spot dozens of times, but he can't recall any of these titles. There's a hardback of Christopher Marlowe plays, a graphic novel about vampires. The speeches of Martin Luther King Jr.

Duo touches his elbow. 'I know this is how we always play this, but let's shake things up and actually look at each other?'

'Play?' It's Duo's game. It always is. He really should have noticed it wasn't his own shirt. The cuffs hang to his knuckles. He's been pushing them up all day. Maybe that's how Duo knew.

'I have an idea. Care to listen?'

He rubs his mouth. Martin Luther rejoins Czeslaw Milosz. 'What.'

'I've been thinking-- I've been thinking if maybe it has something to do with, like, routine. You know? You said you didn't want anything to change and so nothing did. Trowa said that. But everything changes. And I'm going to offer you some advice as someone who's had everything change, so you can listen or not, but I'm putting it out there.'

The words trail off until the final phrase, which land like stone slamming to a sudden stop. It's the stop that's surprising, actually. Wufei knows well enough the 'advice' will come whether he agrees or not. And in a way that makes the hesitation, the request for permission, even stranger, because Duo knows that Duo is going to air whatever conclusion he's reached, because Duo, if no-one else, knows that being right doesn't require pretty packaging. A catalogue of life experiences like Duo's entitles one to a certain wisdom of survival.

'Maybe if you go a little wild,' Duo says, 'it'll help.'

Wufei isn't sure what he expected. Yoga classes, perhaps. Vision quests in the desert. Even a séance wouldn't have surprised him. This does.

'When have I ever been wild?'

'Exactly,' Duo pounces. 'So you get it?'

'I'm not sure I do,' he begins, but his bearings are thrown just enough off by this that intrigue creeps in on the scepticism.

There is, after all, something seductive in Duo's brand of crazy. Like train wrecks and fattening foods.

'Don't freak out, but I'm going to do something weird.' Duo reaches for his flies.

That snaps Wufei back to reality. He throws out a protest, throws out a hand to stop the horror. The horror being the dangerously low band of Duo's boxers, now in direct contact with Wufei's palm.

Duo turns a distinct red. Wufei is no better. 'Yeah,' Duo says, 'that's not quite what I meant for you to do.'

'Then why are you flashing me?'

'Pretend it's not my dick. I mean, try to just be objective here.' Duo shakes him off, and pulls down his boxers.

There's a plethora of reasons why he tries to shut his eyes to the sight of Duo's penis. It's Duo's, which is reason enough, and friends don't force other friends to look at their genitalia. It's been six months since he's seen a penis other than his own, for another, and Wufei is more than sexual enough to want to see it, and more than conflicted enough to emphatically fake blindness. But it's hanging there, dark curls and wrinkled pale skin under Duo's flat belly, and somewhere between the instantaneous ranking of shape and size and attractiveness he realises what he's looking at, and hears his own aborted inhale too loud in the quiet.

Prince Albert, he thinks, or maybe that's just the only name for a piercing-- a piercing there that he knows. It's a barbell horizontal through the head, silver beads that are-- that are eyes for the dragon tattoo flaring down the shaft. Scales in green and blue curve away from the crown and arch into wings that flare toward Duo's hips. A twitch of Duo's finger reveals a soft underbelly in red that fades toward the dangling testicle sac.

And when the shock becomes a muzzy sort of contemplation, it becomes not just Duo's previously-- he has personal knowledge it was previously pristine, though in the hospital Duo had never demanded he look at it-- but as the contemplation of it sets in, he realises what it is. It's art.

It's a beautiful, aggressive piece. Vividly, violently colourful, but that's Duo. Nothing less would be appropriate. And if 'appropriate' seems to be entirely the wrong word for what he's staring at, it does seem oddly appropriate, on Duo. It's not so much decoration, it's nothing as crass as a salacious secret, because it obviously is a secret; it's nothing so common as a lover's name or even a favoured symbol. It's not even a totem. It's as if the creature grew from Duo's skin by its own will. Duo's will. It's like it's alive, and he has a vivid, colourful image that's purely fantasy of what it would look like at full attention.

His throat is dry. 'I don't think I'm that brave, Duo.'

Duo grins. 'I was high when I got it. On a lot of shit.'

'So you're going to get me high, then have someone do this to me?' Wufei demands incredulously. 'There aren't enough drugs in the world. But--'

'I don't mean you have to--' Duo tucks himself away. 'But it's an example. Do something you'd never do, you know? It helps. Going a little wild.'

The flush on Duo's face and skittery expression in his eyes say something about the cost of revealing this. Which is probably nothing like the cost of getting it done, years ago. He has a sudden notion of when, and why. It's not quite an arrow pointing to the missing leg, but it might as well be.

'It's beautiful.' Wufei exhales deeply, and takes the plunge for Duo. He can't quite believe he's agreeing, but it seems to mean so much to him. 'I'm probably not cool enough for something like that,' he says. 'You'll, uh, have to decide what and where.'

'It's kind of personal, don't you think, or ought to be?' Duo tugs at his shirt as if it can shield him. 'I made Heero take me. I thought I was going to do just the piercing. But I was looking around, and the lady suggested this. I won't swear to why, but it just made sense, at the time. It was... right after the accident.' It's Wufei who touches, this time, cupping Duo's elbow. Duo shrugs uneasily. 'I kept feeling like I had to be all right with it, you know? But I wasn't. This helped.'

The logic has come full circle. Both of them have their scars. Some of them hideous, some invisible. There's a certain kind of sense in seeking another, beautiful blaze to blot out the pain from one so devastating. It's not a symbol he's entirely sure he can live with.

But he agrees.

'I understand,' he says, says it softly, and knows from the lift of Duo's eyes that he's been heard. 'I do. Let's go. We'll figure it out when we get there.'

'Really?' The pleasure on Duo's face glows. He claps Wufei's hand in his. 'But we're getting drunk first. You are, anyway.'

'Is that mandatory?'

'Trust me, you'll be glad you did.'

'How am I supposed to make an informed decision if I'm flying?' He doesn't want to argue this. Duo's face is so alight, and Wufei wishes he could just run out and make it happen magically, but details aren't helping him hurry forward to meet destiny. He hates being wild. He hates being out of control, and that includes the influence of alcohol. He hates tattoos, usually. Why has he consented to this?

'I'm going to get drunk, then,' Duo says. 'Come on.'

Coat, shoes, wallets. A brisk jog down the stairs to the lobby. Duo has his keys, Duo has his arms, the lead, setting him into the passenger seat and buckling him in, and then Duo is pulling out of the driveway. The blast of his air conditioner is too cold, and with a shock he realises it's mid-February.

Trowa died in August.

He wets his lips. 'I'm better. Anyway. Time.'

Duo glances from the corner of his eyes. 'Sure.'

'There's no rush. I'm not going to back out.'

'Who's rushing?'

It feels like a crazy careen. To a hazy end. Frightening end. He is frightened, might as well admit it. He hates being wild. It's never been in his character, and even if it had been it would hardly have been encouraged. Dignity, that was important, that was preferable. Comportment. He's not the kind of man who makes rash decisions, who acts on impulse.

He'd slept with Trowa on impulse. He'd slept with Trowa because he was tired of being alone, and Trowa had been tired of waiting for something that would never happen, and three years later--

No. Tempting to think that, but it was an inaccurate memory, compressing events that had taken weeks, months, overlooking the foundations of a friendship that was more than deep enough to admit sexual experimentation, if not-- deep enough--

It's not the pain of needles that bothers him. Putting ink in his skin. It's marking Trowa's death. Permanently. Visibly.

He's hot now. He plucks at his collar. Duo is probably wondering when he'll make a dive out the moving car-- he seems to be avoiding braking, skirting red lights for side streets.

He's thinking-- if it can just be only partially about closing off the end of Trowa's life, and partially too about this new friendship he's got with Duo, this Duo who's been there for him, been aggressively there for him, been his distraction when distraction was needed and his confessor when he'd needed someone to just listen, in those early days, and even now with the frustration of Duo pushing him to heal quicker and faster and better, Wufei is not unaware of the fact that they've turned a corner that might not even have existed before for them. The closeness they have now, the closeness that got Wufei into a car to please Duo-- if it can be partially about this, too, about-- metamorphosis-- becoming something new. If it can be about that, too, that's better, isn't it? That's-- profound. A shared experience. A bond.

Lesser men would panic. Wufei swallows drily.

'There it is. One-stop shopping.' A strip mall, considerably run-down. They've crossed half of Seattle while he was lost in his thoughts. The Space Needle is visible from here, when he gets out of the car, rising above the rest of the city like a science-fiction joke framed by the mountains and Lake Union.

'Where are we?' Wufei asks.

'Highland Park. I used to live here, before the rest of you schlepped into town.' Duo steps close to him, perhaps to keep him from fleeing. 'This is where I got mine done. Also, booze.'

'Duo, I…' He manages a little smile. Duo takes his hand.

Anything approaching normal went out the window when Duo dropped his boxers. He's touched Duo before. Duo has touched him.

Why is this different?

It is, though.

 

**

 

_They were in the courtyard grilling for Colonial Independence Day when Trowa came home._

_Duo had been reading to Wufei from one of his political magazines, an article about the recent scandal the press had nicknamed 'Trousergate'. They were laughing, cracking up at the insanity of it all and marvelling at such petty ridiculousness was somehow treated seriously these days, and the smell of the burgers on the grill and the tangy taste of the beer Duo had brought gave the day a wonderful autumn crispness._

_Trowa had been in D Area for two months. He'd been due back after the weekend. He was early._

_And being Trowa, he came in wanting a beer and a blow job, and was not best pleased to see them. Wufei handed Duo the grill tongs. 'Watch the food?' he asked._

_Duo followed his gaze. 'Yeah,' he said shortly. 'Will do.'_

_Wufei jogged across the grass to greet his lover. 'I didn't expect you until Wednesday,' he said, and kissed Trowa on the neck. Trowa's hand slid from his waist to his ass. 'There's dinner.'_

_But Trowa was in a mood. 'Come upstairs and fuck around with me. I've been horny for a week, thinking about you.'_

_Duo was watching them and pretending not to. 'When he goes,' Wufei suggested. 'Come get something to eat. Independence Day.'_

_'I was just in the colonies and I didn't hear a lot of people saying thank-you.' Trowa let him go. 'I'm grabbing a shower. Call me when food's ready.'_

_Wufei tried to put on the cheerful face he'd been wearing before, walking back to the grill. 'Good thing we've got extra,' he observed._

_'Yeah. It's about ready.' Duo turned a burger, handed Wufei a new beer. 'He okay?'_

_'Yes. I'm sorry.'_

_'For what?' Duo hung the tongs on the grill and donned his jacket. 'Hey, I'm gonna go.'_

_'Don't. Please. We were having a nice night.'_

_'You'll keep having a nice night, if I'm not here. I saw his face.'_

_'He's early. He should have called.' But he knew Duo was right. Trowa wouldn't come down until Duo was gone._

_Duo gave him a one-armed hug, a brief kiss on the cheek. 'Gimme a call whenever.'_

_Exactly two minutes later Wufei wrenched back the shower curtain, revealing a lathered and wet Trowa. 'Am I not allowed to have friends now?' Wufei demanded of him._

_Trowa aimed the showerhead at his face, eyes closed against the spray. 'Friend? Is that was he is?'_

_'Of course. What else would he be?'_

_Trowa burst out laughing. 'Really? You really don't see it?'_

_'No,' Wufei said crossly. 'I don't see anything but an ass who can't even say hello after weeks away.'_

_A soapy hand latched onto his arm. 'Come fuck around,' Trowa commanded, his eyes hot. 'I'll show you how I tell_ my boyfriend _hello.'_

 

**

 

Duo comes out of the store with a paper bag, which he presses into Wufei's hand. 'Vodka,' he explains.

'I could have paid for my own buzz.'

'My treat.'

'The whole thing?' He's not sure he ought to let Duo. But it seems to be Duo's party. He doesn't object.

He's thinking about those marks on Duo's body. There's this excitement-- half dread, half excitement. Like flying his Gundam-- sort of. He knows what he’s about to do will be permanent, will scar, but there are reasons that-- offset the consequences.

If he’s lucky. He has sudden visions of snickers in the changing room at Preventers Plaza.

'Generally, with alcohol, it's more effective if you imbibe it.'

'If I do anything stupid, I never want to hear about it. Not from you or anyone else.'

'I swear. Besides, I've got my own secrets to keep.'

'Then I guess we'll have to trust each other.' An entire bottle. He breaks the cap and raises it for a sip. He coughs, and that makes him blush. He drinks. Just not often. Duo, he's sure, would have managed it smoothly. He does better with the second swallow.

'Little more.'

'I hate relinquishing control. You know this.' In for a penny. That's a favourite of Duo's. Wufei swigs. He gets too large a mouthful, but it goes down, burning his throat and nasal passages and sloshing, he imagines, in his empty stomach.

'It's not relinquishing. We're taking it back.'

'Okay.' One more, as much as he can in one swallow. He almost never drinks. His head is going swimmy. 'Let's get this done with, please.'

'One more, and we're go.'

'Are you going to carry me in?' Shots. He had shots, after Quatre's wedding. He's fairly sure Duo was the one pouring that night, although he remembers Zechs, too. He also remembers Duo and Zechs sneaking off, not at all as discreetly as they thought. 'I don't like Zechs,' he says.

Duo grins with one side of his mouth. 'I'll email him the news tomorrow. Come on, son.'

'All right.' He's embarrassed at the uncertain direction of his steps, until he remembers this is the desired goal. Duo's hand is on the small of his back, pleasant little pressure. They're walking past dark windows. It's night time. Most of the shops are closed. There's a Chinese take-away, smelling like grease and cooked cabbage. A nail salon and a women's gym. Mobile phones. Here, end of the strip, a tattoo parlour. The name is funny--

The bell clangs tinnily. It's worse, when the door swings shut behind them. Infinitely worse.

It's a hot little den inside, sweltering. Dim, and what there is to see Wufei is starting to have trouble seeing. Life is blurring. Duo guides him with a hand on his shoulder, keeping him close as Wufei turns a slow circle. There are pictures everywhere on the walls. It's like being inside a shiny photo album. Swallowed by a camera's memory card.

'Look at some pictures?' Duo suggests. 'See if anything appeals?'

No dragons. He doesn't know who started that nickname and he's always hated it. No mythical creatures, really, he's never been one for fancies like that, dislikes the unsubtle metaphors. Phoenixes and new life-- cliché. Eagles and bravery. It doesn't take bravery to survive a loss. It takes grit. It takes endurance. It takes getting out of bed every day whether you want to or not, with Quatre Winner living in Trowa's home because Wufei was never meant to be there, and Heero, who must count himself lucky, that Quatre was desperate enough for someone to forgive him--

'No barbed wire, no naked ladies, and no Gundams,' Duo advises. 'Take your time.'

'Is there going to be--' No grace in the wave he makes at the counter show cases, the shelves of rings and piercings. A black foam pad loaded with barbells of all sizes. Big like Duo's. Had it hurt, going in? No, probably not. Duo had said he'd been high.

'Only if you want. Pierce your ear or something, though. The downstairs gets kind of embarrassing at airports and doctor's visits.'

'Ears are boring.'

There's a big white girl in the room with them now, coming in through the beaded curtain behind the counter. Her bare arms are covered in tattoos, all the things Duo told him not to get-- no Gundams, though. A giant heart with a bullet bloodily rending it is inked right over her ample left breast, where her corset shirt is low enough to display it. Her lazy, 'Hey guys, thanks for coming,' trails off; a sudden leering grin spreads across her black-painted lips. 'Trouser Snake,' she says with relish. 'Been a while.'

Trouser Snake. Wufei stares at Duo's blushing face. 'You're Trouser Snake,' he says, delighted. 'She means you.'

God. He's drunk.

The big girl is still grinning at Duo. 'That picture of your ink sells me a lot of jobs, you know.' She finds the picture among the little squares glued to the counter, points it out. Wufei fetches to a halt against the glass to stare down at it. Yes, that's it. Fresh and painful looking, so no wonder Duo had wanted insulation. The ridges are bright and fresh like raw wounds. The site of the piercing looks tender, the skin moist. Moist.

The hand holding Duo's penis out for the camera is most definitely not Duo's.

'He wants something symbolic,' Duo is saying. 'We're still looking.'

'I want what he has, and big, too. He says I needed to get wild,' Wufei interrupts absently. The picture is entrancing, really. But whose hand? The tattoo-er? Not this girl, with her long scarlet nails. It's a man's hand. Blunt fingers, skin darker than the pale hip it hovers over.

'We can do symbolic. And wild.' There's a book, an artist's portfolio, overstuffed with lurid coloured sketches of cartoon characters, roses, hissing snakes and worm-covered skulls. Plenty of naked ladies.

'I don't know,' Duo says.

He reaches to turn a page, and even through the fuzz of the vodka stuffed in his coat, he has a revelation. Right in front of the woman who makes no effort not to listen, he demands, 'You took Heero to do this?'

'I told you I did.' Duo glances sidelong at him. He moves the book over the picture of his penis. 'He stood here the whole time saying shit like “Can you get VD from the needle?” and “Do you sell catheters so he can pee when it gets infected”.'

'Can you?'

The girl says, 'No.'

'What do you think about fire, Wufei? Like not like the flames you see on a car or something, but like a real looking one?' There's a section of fire designs. Duo taps them. 'What do you think about these?'

'Fire.' Flames and smoke and torches and charcoal embers, bright flames, dying flames. 'Yeah,' he says, and then nothing. Trowa burned him in more ways than one.

Duo covers his hand. 'You don't really have to do this. Ink's kind of permanent.'

He rubs his nose. He can't really feel it. Lightweight, Trowa used to say. 'Are you sorry you did it?'

'Sorry?' Duo's head tilts. His hand is warm. Wufei can feel that much. 'No. I don't think I am really.'

He points to a sketch, black pencil only, but it's the right one. The flames look very real, bordered with just wisps of smoke, running through the flickers, sometimes obscuring. Like something cooking, almost gone. There's almost a shadow of something dying in the flames. 'That. I want that.'

The girl bends to see. 'You sure? Kind of weird.'

'I'm weird.' Duo's hand still has his. He doesn't move. 'Is it weird or is it the right thing?'

Duo never looks at it. He looks at Wufei, and he smiles, just a little curl of his lips. 'I like it.'

'Where you gonna put it?' asks the girl.

'I don't know. Everywhere.' He fumbles the first button. Trowa's button, Trowa's shirt. It takes intense concentration to make his fingers operate such a simple task. How much did he drink? He doesn't quite recall. Duo's helping, which is kind of him. 'What do you think?'

'Well, “everywhere” is a little inspecific.' Duo tugs at his collar. Wufei discovers there's a certain kind of titillation in having Duo stare at his naked chest. Duo is mangling his lower lip between his teeth. 'Not over the heart. Too much like heartburn.' He turns Wufei, who is disappointed only until he feels Duo's hands smooth across his shoulders, down his spine. Warm fingers settle just above the small of his back, for a moment; they're moving again, skimming far too lightly over his buttocks. They stop on his upper thigh. 'It's kinda gay,' he says, somewhere far away behind Wufei, 'but I vote here.'

Leg. Yes. Like the one Duo lost. He finds Duo's wrist, tugs impatiently. To his hip, to the place where Duo's hip had been crushed, where they'd stapled his spine to the separated sacra. He'll take all of that to the grave, those long days by Duo's bed in the hospital, wondering when he'd wake up, if he would-- if he would want to. Trowa had been so much harder, though. From the beginning Trowa had acted like death was around the corner, was only trying because Wufei wanted him to. And in the end, Trowa had sent him away, knowing he would come back in a week and find him laying dead, alone...

He's holding Duo's hand to his chest, just beneath his left pectoral. 'Like that,' he says, subdued now. Sad now. 'I want it like that.'

'You got a thing for Asians?' the girl asks Duo.

Duo's face is furious, for a moment, glaring at her. He sucks in a breath as if he's forgotten how. 'He wants it there,' he repeats unnecessarily.

'It'll hurt like a motherfucker. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.'

Neither of them tells her-- Wufei wants it to, suddenly. He is glad that it will.

The back room is little more than a few dentist-like chairs and bright spot lights on stretched aluminium necks. There's a huge man already sitting in one, hairy arms bursting out of a black leather vest, a meaty calf propped up. A thin man no larger than himself or Duo is doing the inking for him. It's a Mandarin character, and Wufei looks curiously. His laugh is too loud, and they turn to look. He doesn't tell them-- it's too late, after all-- the character is 'family', but it's been mirrored, reversed. He doubts either the biker or the artist know.

He's sitting shirtless now, laying back with his head cushioned on Duo's arm. Duo holds the vodka bottle to his lips, when no-one's looking. 'Down the hatch, Giggly-puff.'

He turns his head away, his mood plunging once more. The other reason he doesn't like drinking-- too much going on inside him he would rather be suppressing. 'No more. I don't want it,' he complains. 'I want it to burn me.'

'Trust me,' Duo murmurs gently.

It doesn't taste so bad anymore, at least. His numb tongue barely tastes it at all. Three swallows, before the girl is back, a tray of pigments and what looks a fist-sized brass machine with a huge needle at the end of it. Duo wipes his chin as the bottle disappears.

'You're staying, right?' Wufei asks, suddenly anxious.

'Absolutely,' Duo answers. Wufei closes his eyes as the room spins. Good, he thinks, and forgets to say aloud.

The girl marks his chest with transfer paper; it feels strange with his eyes closed, disconnected. The first touch of the needle makes him jump, but Duo is whispering soothing things in his ear, things he doesn't have to listen to to understand. It feels like the needle is ranging all over his body, though it's probably only a few inches. He's getting tired-- getting exhausted, as if he's been running all day, all week, though he hasn't even been to the training field in a month. Life is so peaceful, these days. He used to spar with Heero, before Heero quit to go be in love with Quatre. Everyone is always in love with Quatre. Not him. He was only ever in love with Trowa.

'Wufei?' Duo rubs his shoulder. 'You want more to drink?'

His eyes feel wet and hot. 'No more ghosts after this. Right?'

'Ghosts... they never really disappear. But I think this'll help take the sting out.'

Good. That will be good. He's ready to stop holding on.

Duo kisses his temple, the top of his head. He feels Duo's lips on him. So gentle. He turns his head for the next one, and it's almost on his lips.

'Dude, I don't know what you do to get these guys, but I want some.'

Not the girl. Wufei jerks his eyes open. The man, the one who was giving the tattoo to the biker. The biker is gone now. They're all standing there watching the girl tattoo him, now, as if he's been laid out on an altar instead of a lounge chair.

'What guys?' he asks Duo. 'What does he mean?'

Duo doesn't quite meet his gaze now. 'He means-- Heero sort of... performed a public service for me, when we were here. I had pills, but I was still on the MS-Contin, back then. I couldn't, um...'

'He had his hands on you. I saw.'

'He hated every minute of it.'

'He always was a little stupid.'

Duo chuckles. 'He thought I was being stupid. Hated being here. Maybe he had a point. But even if he didn't get it, I knew what I needed to do.'

The needle digs in just a little, and then it's gone. The girl mops his chest with a damp cloth.

'You're gonna want to keep the bandage on for a while, until it stops bleeding. If it looks infected, see a doctor. Don't screw around with it.'

'Do I look like I screw around?' Oh. He probably does, actually. He's surely visibly drunk, and there's been quite a lot of flirtation-- flirtation. He's been flirting with Duo without even knowing he was doing it. His face flames, and when he lifts his arm to hide his flush, the twinge in his chest reminds him what, exactly, he's been doing for the past hour, and it's a very good thing, then, that it's so hard to think clearly.

'Can I take a pic?' It's the man who holds up a camera. 'You did a great job on this one, Teagan.'

Flash. It's still so dim. Wufei rubs his face. Duo pats his knee, avuncular now as if that comment maybe bothered him, too, and says, 'Come on, son, let's get you poured into bed. Separate beds.'

Duo pays. Wufei tells himself to object later, or just to look around Duo's car in the morning for the receipt, likely to join the others on the floormats. He's burning hot, though it's cooler in the lobby, and will be plenty cold outside. He's starting to feel nauseated. He wonders if he'll throw up in Duo's car.

He doesn't. When he's sitting, and Duo has the heat on just enough to stir his hair where it's come loose by his ears, Wufei feels like he might survive being drunk. The radio is on, too, something soft that sounds like the classical channel but isn't, just instrumental like that. It's soothing, meditative, and he's calm now, so calm he feels almost like he's been fasting for days, like he's been... cleansed.

'Thank you,' he is able to say then, from somewhere deep inside himself.

'Of course.'

Even Duo's driving is smoother, now. There's fewer lights on now, just street lamps and parking lots and houses and the bridges, illuminated to guide night-time passengers. 'What comes next?' Wufei asks him.

'Now you sleep for a while. See if you hate it in the morning.'

'I won't.'

'You might be a teeny bit hungover.'

'That's what aspirin is for.' He recognises the exit they take. They're going to Wufei's apartment, not Duo's. 'Are you staying?'

'Sure, if you want.'

'We'll order in.'

'Hungry?'

'No. You are.'

'Nah, the leg I lost was the hollow one.'

 

**

 

_Duo and Heero arrived already bickering._

_'This ASSHOLE took an assignment over Christmas AGAIN!'_

_'What's the problem with that?' Heero answered crossly. He put a case of beer in Wufei's arms and yanked off his coat like it was on fire. 'I don't have a family. It's just another day to me.'_

_Ah, the holidays fight. Duo and Heero rehashed it for public observation every three months._

_This time, though, Trowa looked up from the television and said, 'Take it off this year.'_

_Duo was surprised. But he rallied fast. 'See? Everyone hates when you do this.'_

_Heero was also shocked. 'Why? You don't participate either.'_

_Wufei discovered, then, the precise end of his rope. Trowa wasn't even looking at him. He left with the beer, shoving it onto the kitchen table and clattering into the pot of boiling dungeness crab. He spattered himself with blister-raising bubbles as he used short tongs to fish them out, but the burns barely registered._

_'I think they're having a domestic,' Duo stage-whispered._

_Trowa said, 'I want to be together this year. All of us.'_

_'So it's a date. You can't get out of it, Heero.'_

_Heero's naturally suspicious nature interpreted between the lines. 'What's with you?' Wufei heard him ask._

_'Nothing really,' Trowa replied casually. 'I just won't be around next Christmas.'_

_Wufei closed his eyes._

_'Where you going?' Duo asked curiously. 'Honeymoon? You two finally set a date?'_

_'I'm sick.' Trowa let it hang there in the sudden silence from the other two. 'So yeah, I expect good presents, too.'_

_The silence stretched out. Wufei stared down at the crab platter without seeing them. He didn't know if he wanted to scream or just try to make it through the evening. If Trowa had his way, they'd be ignoring that little announcement and limping their way through stilted conversation about the Seahawks' bad season._

_Then Duo said, 'You can be a turd,' and then he was in the kitchen, coming right to Wufei and embracing him._

_Wufei held him hard with a shaking inhale, more grateful than he could ever have expressed. 'I didn't want him to tell you that way,' he managed, but Duo shushed him gently._

_'It could have been worse.'_

_No lie. Trowa had told Wufei after sex._

_Wufei eased away from Duo's arms. 'He doesn't want to tell Quatre. At all.'_

_'What? He can't keep this from him.'_

_'He says he can't and we can't either. He wasn't going to tell any of you.'_

_In response Duo hugged him again, tight and warm. 'Are you okay?' he whispered gently._

_'No.' Duo's bony shoulder held his head up, until he closed his eyes again. 'No, damn it. I feel so impotent.'_

_'That's just because you're still surprised. You'll figure out what you can do to help. Remember? The same way you did when it was me in hospital. You're really good at figuring out what to do.'_

_'What will I do when it's-- over?' He knew he could get through to that point. There would always be something to do, yes, tasks, needs, missions-- but when there were none of those things left, he really didn't know. It yawned black and terrifying before him._

_Duo said, 'Then you'll take time to breathe, and then you'll go on.' He released Wufei, but his hand came up to smooth Wufei's hair, as if he were a child, or a loved one. 'He wants that. He's trying to keep it normal so you'll have that. He sucks at it, but that's what it is.'_

_Wufei drew a deep breath. 'He's already seen an attorney. It's as if he's already dead.'_

_'That's just because you're scared right now,' Duo repeated gently. 'And so is he.' His hand stayed curved to Wufei's cheek. Hating his own weakness, Wufei buried his face in Duo's fingers, until the press of hot tears behind his eyelids faded enough to be willed away._

_'Yeah.' He nodded. 'Thanks.'_

_'Okay.' Duo smiled at him. 'I have to go hug Trowa now, or he'll be jealous.'_

_'Let him be. Let him think I'm already shopping for his replacement.'_

_Duo kissed his cheek. 'I know you didn't mean that, so don't feel guilty after I leave the room.'_

_And Duo did go hug Trowa. Who looked as though maybe it wasn't as repulsive as he would have liked to find it. And then since hugs were going around, Heero got one too, and they made it through the evening after all._

 

**

 

His apartment complex. The tidy row of grey-brick buildings, tree-lined avenues between. Duo parks where he always does, the handicap spot right beside the lobby door. Tonight, Wufei doesn't rag on him for it. He's grateful there's only a short distance to walk, and a lift to his floor. Duo takes care of everything, unlocking doors, turning on lights. He even knows where the take-away menus are in the kitchen drawer, and he rifles through to Wufei's favourites in the bottom of the stack. 'You want tea?' he asks. The electric kettle is already on the boil. 'You hungry at all?'

He shakes his head. 'I never had a hollow leg.'

Duo grins briefly. The menus are tucked away where they belong, and Duo gets a yoghurt from the refrigerator. 'I'm not really hungry either.'

'You never answered me.' The bamboo mats on the dining table are crooked-- not much, but enough to occupy his pointer finger. 'Not really.'

'What didn't I answer?'

'What comes next?'

Duo stares into his yoghurt like it's tea leaves, capable of revealing the future and the right words. 'Now you move on,' he says softly. 'As much as you can.'

'Yeah.'

'It's okay. Moving on. The dead... they're not placing blame. And us blaming them-- that only feels good for so long, before it just makes it harder.'

'I wasn't blaming him. I was blaming Quatre.'

The only sound between them is Duo's spoon on the yoghurt carton. Finally he asks, 'Are you still mad at him?'

'No,' Wufei says.

'For realz?'

'For realz.' An unwilling smile tugs at him. 'He and Trowa should have had those years. I was the interloper. Not Quatre.'

'Quatre left, man. And Trowa was your boyfriend. There's no should or shouldn't-haves. Just was. Was-es.'

'Was. It's over. We're moving on, remember?'

'Yeah.'

'I don't want to be mad at him. At either of them.'

'I know. You spent a lot of your life being angry. I guess it gets pretty old.'

'Very old.' He inhales deeply, until his head feels a little light. 'I don't want it any more.'

'You frown a lot when you're pissed,' Duo observes. Then suddenly he laughs. It's a rich sound, unrestrained now, when they've been speaking softly as if to keep from infringing on the night. 'Well,' he says, 'I guess now that you've seen the dong decoration, I don't have to worry about taking my pants off.'

It is funny. Laughing makes his chest hurt. 'Were you worried? Showing me?'

'Well in private I think a little dignity is important. In public, it's all about shock value.'

'You're not normal.'

'I'm just kidding.'

He smiles. 'I know.'

For a moment, he's sure Duo is going to say something. Something important. It's right there, so sharp that Wufei straightens in anticipation--

Duo looks away. 'You tired?'

He's disappointed. He doesn't even know why. 'Yes. A lot. Someone fed me a lot of vodka.'

'Come on.' The yoghurt lands in the trash, and Duo is herding him down the hall to his bedroom. Wufei goes to the bed, and Duo goes to the bath, so Wufei strips where he stands and crawls under his duvet in his boxers. When Duo comes back, there's a glass of water in his hand, and he puts two tabs of aspirin on the bedside table with it. 'Shout if you need anything. I'll be on the couch. And don't roll over. Sleep on your back.'

'If you have better things to do, you could go.' The moment his head hits the pillow he can barely keep his eyes open. Duo turns off the light, so it's only the one in the bath left on, as if he were one of Quatre's children who needs a night-light to keep the monsters at bay. Duo is a dark blur bending over him, tucking him in.

'If I had better things to do I would have ditched all you losers a decade ago.' He imagines that Duo winks at him.

'Why didn't you?'

'Sucker, I guess.'

'Don't. Okay?'

'Don't what, hon?'

'Make a joke of this.' Buzzing. The room is buzzing. He has to close his eyes.

It finally happens. He feels Duo's mouth on his, pressing gently, almost chastely, but warm and-- and Duo's hand on his hair, as if he were something precious.

'I am, though,' Duo says, from far far away. 'Biggest sucker you ever knew.'

 

**

 

_Wufei picked him up at the usual time from his chemo appointment. Trowa didn't like him to stay during the infusions, so Wufei spent two hours at the gym and came back with a cola and a barf bag. This time was no different, except for the announcement Trowa made as soon as he popped the tab on the soda._

_'Last time we'll have to do this,' he said._

_Wufei looked sharp as he left the curb and headed for the exit. 'They're changing the regimen?'_

_Trowa was sipping cautiously, grimacing out the windscreen. 'I quit,' he said, and shrugged. 'I'm finished.'_

_It was remarkable what a man could feel in the space of a few seconds. Wufei ran through terror and fury in the same heartbeat, and then his stomach fell in sick resignation. 'Why?'_

_'It's not going to cure me. It's only going to give me a few more weeks of feeling shitty and I don't need that.' Trowa glanced at him aslant, the bruised shadows under his eyes making the green irises washed clear, like river water over stones. 'Don't look at me like that. This isn't about you and it isn't about us. It's about me and it's my fucking right to decide.'_

_In the dead silence after that Wufei tried to concentrate on driving, worried he'd forget what he's doing and hit someone while he was busy trying to breathe again. Trowa put his hand on Wufei's thigh, but it was too late, and Wufei felt his skin crawl in dazed reaction._

_'Sorry,' Trowa mumbled, from far away. 'I don't always think before I open my mouth.'_

_'But you do. That's the problem.'_

_The drive from hospital to home had never seemed so long. Yet whenever he blinked they were much further than he thought. He couldn't seem to wake up his own mind._

_He said, 'Are you going to call him?'_

_Trowa removed his hand. 'No.'_

_'He should know. It's time to let him know.'_

_'No. Let him have his life.'_

_'Yeah, all of us can just live our lives,' he said tightly, 'and you'll live yours until you... leave. And that will be the end of it.' He stabbed a hand out to the radio and flipped it on. Flipped the channels, not to find anything in particular, but just to not be talking._

_Until the pressure in his own head was too much. He turned the radio off again. 'I don't want you to quit.'_

_Trowa shifted, curling one leg onto the seat and close to his chest. 'I know.' And then, magically, they were home-- Trowa's home, anyway. The one Wufei had never been invited into, because he had known the rules when he got involved, and knew his vote was never going to be counted if Trowa didn't like what he had to say._

_'Coming in?' Trowa said, and didn't mean a word of it._

_He gave it three more weeks, in the end. And when he told them all to leave and locked himself inside, Wufei gave it two more days before he called Quatre._

 

**

 

'A lot of them are going to Umi,' Duo says. 'And no, not just my friends, people you actually like.'

'Who?' Wufei cautiously clarifies.

'People. I'm hot, Wufei. I want to go out to some place with glorious, glorious air conditioning.'

'It's not my fault yours broke. We can stay here. It's perfectly fine in my apartment.'

'You're killing me. You are fucking killing me. I want a big fizzy beer and a lot of bits of raw flesh to rend with my fangs, and I want to fall into a drunken stupor on your couch afterward. My fucking super is a fucking lazy asshole. Who waits to fix a central AC? He's suffering too.'

'You could do it, if it bothers you so much.'

'It's a fucking principle of the thing. I'm not the super, Carter's the super and Carter can suck my sac before I do his fucking job for him.'

Wufei, whose AC is in excellent working order, mostly finds the ranting amusing. Their Saturdays are usually spent at home, but Duo came roaring in wearing a greasy shorts with his teeshirt over a damp bare shoulder like a backpack. He's stalking around Wufei's sitting area like that, thumping his chest with a fist to emphasise what's already quite emphatic enough. There's a bead of sweat Wufei's idly watching trip a slow crooked path from the hollow of Duo's sharp collarbones down his sternum. Will it veer left or right?

'EXCUSE me,' Duo says. 'Are you even listening to me?'

'No,' Wufei answers mildly. 'I don't want to go out. If you really want sushi, we can order in from Sushi Yama.'

'You never want to go out. I want to go out for once.'

'The convention starts tonight. I wanted to listen to the speeches.'

'Because there's no possible way to hear them after the fact? Half the office spends the entire day on YouTube already, and I know you listen to the news at work. Come on, Wufei, for me. Is it because I'm sweaty? I'll use your shower first. I've got clothes in my car. They might even be clean.'

Wufei closes his magazine. 'I'd rather stay here and have sex.'

Duo actually stops dead in place, wavering unbalanced. 'Wow, you are desperate.'

'No. I just want you.'

He has arguments ready. Logical arguments. It's been a while-- acknowledged. Trowa was sick before he died, which puts Wufei at something like eight months since he's been in bed with anyone. And Duo used to like him like that-- acknowledged. Grant that it wasn't precisely an offer, when Duo confessed that, but there's obviously-- well, he hopes-- he's at least a little sure there's some residue of feeling left that might transmute to sexual attraction once more.

Duo swallows. Wufei can hear him, see his throat move. 'We can talk about it,' he says finally, fainter than before.

Wufei leans his elbows on the couch back. Outwardly, he keeps a cool expression, but he's more anxious inside. 'Talk.'

'Uh-- I-- Is this a “I want some yoghurt so bad I could just scream” or a “Damn it, Duo, shut the hell up”?'

It's about the choice Duo's continually shoved in his face-- be alone or allow someone in again. He's made real progress, he thinks he can say reasonably, in allowing Duo to be that someone. To enjoy Duo near him. And the steps Duo's taken, the outreach Duo has made for him, like the tattoo--

And though the memory of that's gone a little bleary with the record hangover he had after, Wufei is very clear on one thing. Being drunk does not make a man act differently than he would normally-- it only makes him act on impulses he won't let to the surface sober. He very clearly remembers kissing Duo back.

He examines his hands, dry from too much time washing things just to be moving and busy. 'I recognise that I don't want to be alone,' he says slowly. 'And I've been thinking about the signs I missed. The person I enjoy being with, the one who's made himself available to me, is you.' In ways, he hates to admit, that Trowa never was.

'I want you. Not just sex. If the interest is still there.'

Duo tugs at his braid. Very quietly, he says, 'Don't fuck me around. Just sex is fine. But don't say more if you're not ready.'

'I'm not fucking you around.'

Duo's arms have crossed over his chest. It doesn't hide, amongst other things, suddenly hard nipples, or quickened breathing. His eyes are dilated, too, very dark in his oval face.

Then, abruptly, Wufei can see him reach his decision.

'How you want to do this, then?' Duo says, chin high.

Worth a shaky breath. He must not have been all that sure of himself. His stomach has butterflies.

'We could kiss,' he surmises. 'If that works out, we could continue.'

Duo smiles with one side of his mouth. 'You are exactly the way I thought you'd be.' He comes closer, comes around the couch, as Wufei straightens in anticipation. He sets a hand to Wufei's waist to distract him, then dips sharply for his mouth.

It's nothing like the night-time kiss after the tattoo. It's hard, heavy. Sexy. Wufei's slightly taller, and Duo lets him have the lead when he's ready. He tilts Duo's face up with a thumb under his chin. Their tongues touch, slide, and Duo's palms on his back mimic each movement. When a natural pause settles, Duo exhales against his cheek, and whispers, 'We can do this in the bedroom, maybe.'

He shivers. 'Yeah.' He takes Duo's hand from his belt, laces their fingers. 'If you're not sure we could just lie together for a while. Touch.'

'I'm plenty sure.' Duo kisses him firmly. 'Let's go get some action started.'

Lights out, in his bedroom. No, the little lamp by the bed should be on. He's nervous again. Duo's not, though, or he's eager to avoid any lengthy negotiations. He tumbles Wufei to the bed and falls right on top of him. Wufei laughs as they bounce. Duo's weight is more than pleasant, and there's a certain amount of aimless wiggling that amounts to steady escalation. Duo opens Wufei's shirt and kisses down his chest, his head moving blurrily in Wufei's sight as he stops to lick ferociously at Wufei's nipples. When he bites, Wufei groans.

'I have condoms,' Duo murmurs into his skin, 'but I'm clean.'

A sloppy poke of a tongue into his navel. He grabs at Duo's head. 'We don't need them.'

'We need some slick, though. Bathroom?'

'Bedside table drawer.' Probably expired. Or stone-dry. How had he forgotten that part of the plan?

Duo rolls off him, squawking across the duvet to throw open said drawer. He holds the little bottle into the light. 'What is this, bargain basement?' He pops the top and sniffs it. 'We're doing this at my place next time. Never skimp on lube, dude.'

'I didn't... buy it.'

Duo turns his head. His eyebrows are up. 'Whoops. Foot in mouth syndrome. Didn't my mamma ever tell me not to talk like that?'

'Shut up,' Wufei growls, and kisses him quiet. He crawls over Duo's body, letting their hips drag and grind against each other. Duo has a firm grip on his ass, fingers curling between his thighs, until Wufei feels so maddened he can't keep delaying. He flips his loose hair over his shoulder and leans up to unfasten Duo's shorts. He fits his hand inside Duo's boxers, making a fist around Duo's cock. Duo's throat tastes like sweat under his mouth.

Now it's Duo who groans. 'You're way over-dressed, man.'

'We both are.' He gives Duo a squeeze, presses his lips to Duo's sternum, then his belly. He marks each inch of skin revealed with a new kiss. There's the edges of Duo's tattoo-- Wufei traces the tips of the dragon's wings with his tongue, and gives a sharp jerk to the pants in his way. 'Get them off.'

'We've talked about-- eight-hundred-pound gorillas, Wu.'

The leg. He'd forgot. He lets it worry him for the space of a breath, and bends his head to flick his tongue at the piercing in Duo's dick. 'Banished for tonight, okay?'

'What if I told you I wasn't comfortable with it?'

He looks up. 'I've massaged your leg dozens of times.'

'Yeah. But I might be uncomfortable with it, and if I was, you'd have to respect it.'

There's a lot of maybes in that. 'Are you? Or are you worried about me?'

'I'm not worried about either of us.' Duo props himself up on his elbows. 'I just want to concentrate on the mechanics of swinging some pipe, not the mechanics of plastics prosthetics.'

'There's nothing to worry about here. Let me take it off.' He pulls Duo's pants down to his knees.

'Wufei—' But Duo's already surrendering. He flops backward.

Wufei takes that as permission. Once Duo's shorts are off, Wufei settles sitting upright to work on the leg. He ignores the shoe still on the flex foot and concentrates on quick removal-- the sleeve first, then releasing the pressure bladder and carefully tugging the socket free. He leaves the liner where it is, and leans off the bed to place the leg on the carpet.

'Stubborn fucking cunt,' Duo says affectionately.

'Yes.' He takes a moment to admire-- not the leg, but the fact that Duo is finally naked beneath him. The dragon tattoo has taken on life in his imagination, but it's much better in person. He's always liked Duo's body, in the abstract when they were young and he didn't indulge in such thoughts-- it's a raw aesthetic, but there's still an elegance to the rangy limbs. Mostly. Duo's crossing his eyes again.

'You're staring at me,' Duo says.

'I'm enjoying the view.' He likes Duo's skin. Its smoothness and its pallor. Both the men he's been with were white, though Trowa tended more toward tanning. The similarity ends there, though. Trowa was all height and lean muscle. Duo is more compact and thin. And, of course, there's the tattoo. Duo's perking up under his attention, and the dragon is rather magnificent.

'You think maybe sometime this century I'll get to ogle your bits?'

'Shut up.' He caresses Duo's shortened leg no differently than his intact thigh, and lays down in the rumpled duvet to lay his cheek on Duo's stomach. Duo smooths his hair tenderly as he takes the dragon in his mouth.

Ha. The Dragon. Chuckling to himself, he sucks on the head, enjoying the unusual feeling of the piercing against his tongue, the new tastes of Duo, salty and smoky, and let his fingers wander lower to tease.

Duo's quiet and mellow, then, mussing his hair with languid strokes, the tip of his thumb curving Wufei's ear again and again. But after only a few minutes, he whispers for Wufei to stop. 'I appreciate the effort,' he murmurs throatily, 'but I don't think I've got the stamina for more than one round here.'

Wufei trails him with damp fingers. 'Then choose.'

'I can't balance without the leg. You up for topping?'

'Whatever you prefer.' He has to push a pillow aside to find the lube. It's greasier than he remembers, but it serves, leaving Duo slick and shining in the lamplight. Wufei strips slowly, revelling a little in Duo's obvious appreciation of him. When he's nude, he straddles Duo's hips, grips him tightly, and settles back slowly processing the familiar-strange sensations.

When he can drag his eyes open, it's to Duo watching him closely, hands hovering at his hips. Duo's eyes are so open, the soft parting of his lips so vulnerable, that Wufei squeezes his hand to reassure him. 'Are you okay?' He trails his fingers down Duo's chest.

Duo nods. He wets his lips. 'You?'

'Yeah.' He bends to kiss Duo again. He starts moving, slow at first, remembering how to do it, balance himself, before he's releasing Duo's mouth, and then he rests his forehead on Duo's chest as he finds a rhythm that's deep enough and quick enough to spare the little twinges of a body too little used to such exercise. But he's fit, and if his body needs anything it's an incredible orgasm, and the very second Duo touches him it's like turning up a dial inside him and he's on the edge that fast.

He sits up straight, legs bunched beneath him, and Duo's fist is tight around his cock as he rocks. He feels sweat breaking out on his temples and upper lip and chest. Duo's eyes are closed one second and slitted open the next, as if he can barely bear it. It's not long-- it occurs to him then that Duo hasn't had a boyfriend in six years, so if anyone has cause to complain about celibacy, it's not Wufei. Duo certainly makes the most of his climax, grabbing at the duvet, at Wufei, arching under him, but silent even as it overtakes him. His shuddery exhale makes Wufei shiver, too.

'Hurry,' he whispers, and brings Duo's hand back to himself, covering it with his own fingers. With Duo still inside him they bring him off, together.

They lay on the duvet, naked and cooling in the slight breeze from the ceiling fan. Marvellous invention, Wufei thinks lazily. And Duo, so quiet. Not at all what he'd thought. A different person once the real business starts. He's more sensitive than he gets credit for.

'I could get used to having you close,' Wufei says, and finds Duo's hand to hold.

'I'm already over here three times a week.' Duo wears a small smile; his eyes are hooded and sleepy. Wufei kisses him.

'Stay the night?'

'Someone stole my leg. Guess I'll have to.'

He laughs rustily. 'Good.' He wipes up with a wad of tissues from the bedside table, careful with Duo, until Duo pulls him down with a yank and fumbles for a pillow large enough for both their heads.

'You'll regret it when I have to pee.'

The leg. His brain is shutting down. 'Bathroom's not far. Be quiet and go to sleep.'

Duo's already yawning. 'You know we'll be up at--' He breaks to exhales. 'Four in the fucking morning, going to sleep this early.'

'For a while.'

Duo worms until his backside is comfortably nestled in Wufei's stomach and snags Wufei's arm over his shoulders. Wufei likes this. He's missed sleeping with someone, though Trowa had rarely been this affectionate after sex. 'You smell good,' he tells the back of Duo's neck.

'Thanks, Big Spoon.'

He's too asleep to smile.

 

**

 

_He heard Duo knock. He also heard Duo cuss, kick the door open, and stomp through the halls to the master bedroom._

_He wasn't finished yet. He'd hoped for a little longer in privacy. Most of the boxes were still half-empty; the only full ones were things he couldn't think about giving up. The ones he'd intended to fill, the ones for the Salvation Army, those were empty._

_Behind him, Duo said, 'So do you want the you're the fuckin' idiot speech, or the I know things are hard but they'll get better speech?'_

_He was not ready for Duo's brand of honesty. His head hurt. His gut hurt. 'Is there a third speech that's mostly silent?' he snapped. He opened the drawers one by one and closed them one by one. He'd already gone through them. He didn't know what else to do._

_Duo thumped into the wall and went sliding down it. Wufei looked from the corner of his eyes. Duo had his hands cupped to his mouth, but it was the snick of a lighter that he recognised. 'You mind?' Duo mumbled around the spliff. He didn't wait. He let out a puff of sour smoke._

_The closet. There was still dirty laundry on the floor. He could bag it, take it home to be washed. Figure it out later. Shirts, uniforms still, coats. Trowa jumbled everything together. Jumbled everything together and didn't do a damn thing to make it easier on anyone._

_He sat on the floor._

_Duo extended the butt. 'You want?' he asked softly._

_Why the hell not? He reached for it. Of all the things he knew were facing him going back to his life on Monday, random drug tests were the last that mattered. He sucked hard on the damp end of it, the deepest lungful he could manage. It was dark, acrid. Bitter. Dangerous._

_'You don't have to do this with me,' he said, and let it dribble from his nose._

_'I'm not doing it with you, point of fact,' Duo said. 'I got time to watch you do it, though.'_

_'Oh.' He stared at the coats. The damn coats. 'This doesn't feel real. Any of it. I keep thinking he's going to walk in.' He climbed slowly to his feet. It was the brown suede someone had got him for Christmas-- it might even have been Wufei. He didn't remember anymore. Expensively distressed, artistically frayed in the elbows and pockets and collar. 'Want this?'_

_'Why don't you come sit next to me for a minute. All that stuff'll still be there in five.'_

_Next to the suede was a jacket Trowa had actually worn. Black, creased with age, not design. The lining was thin in the underarms. Wufei pulled it on, zipped it to his chin. He sat, on the carpet next to Duo facing the bed. Their bed. He pulled the sleeve over his knuckles and lifted it to his nose._

_Duo took his wrist and sniffed it, too. 'Smells like fried chicken.'_

_He laughed until it hitched. 'He ate a lot of junk. Could I have another hit of this?'_

_Duo put it to his lips for him. His lips touched Duo's fingertips as he inhaled from it. He leant his head against the wall and held his breath until his chest began to ache for air. He let it out in a cough._

_'Is it petty of me to want this for myself? Even though I know Quatre expects to do it when he comes back.'_

_'Quat won't come back.' Duo took his own drag. His head settled lightly on Wufei's shoulder. 'He'll go back to L4 and there'll be family and business shit and stuff. Legitimate stuff, but he won't be back.'_

_'It's his house.'_

_'Gonna take a battalion of mobile dolls to drag him in. Let me take you out for some food. We can go to Jim's Chicken and Trout. Get some fried.'_

_'I don't have much appetite.' His lungs tickled. His head felt hot. 'Sure.'_

_'Help me up.'_

_He stood. He didn't feel quite light yet, didn't feel whatever high was supposed to feel like. But it helped having Duo there, someone else in the room who wasn't a memory. Duo puffed out one last smoke, and pinched out the butt._

_'I'm gonna stay around for a while,' he said then. 'Until you settle a bit.'_

_Wufei swallowed. 'I was thinking about staying here tonight.'_

_'No. Come home with me.'_

_He thought of putting up a fuss. He didn't. He acceded with a silent nod._

_Duo mimicked it. 'Now come on. Put some food in you, and you'll be able to think beyond the next four minutes.' He slung his arm over Wufei's shoulders and squeezed. 'Walk with me, Georgie.'_

_They walked. Wufei tried not to look at everything that needed doing. Wanted his doing. He hadn't been sleeping and he knew his mind wasn't right. He didn't have any sense of closure yet. Maybe if he'd been there when Trowa died--_

_But that way lay madness._

_He stopped at the door. He went to the kitchen, Duo dogging his steps. He'd left it on the table. He held it tight between his hands for-- too long, probably. He had to clear his throat to speak. 'He wanted Une to have his weapon. Could you give it to her?'_

_Duo had dark eyes, when he looked up. 'You not planning on using it for some creative sepuku or something? I approve.'_

_'I'm not suicidal.'_

_'Glad to hear it.'_

_'Just give it to her. Okay?'_

_Duo took it from him. His lips were pursed, like he was holding something in. Whatever it was, he never let it out._

_'Okay,' he said._

 

**

 

The second time he sleeps with Duo, Duo comes equipped with a number of salient items. The lube is demonstrably better.

They pause between rounds when hunger becomes more important than finding out just how hard they have to pound the headboard to scratch the wall. Wufei cooks, because it's his home, his kitchen, and because Duo needs time to wash up. He's hungry, yes, but not particularly patient, and so dinner consists of a cup of rice into the cooker and the marinated tofu in garlic and oil in the wok. Duo comes into the kitchen not long after, bare-chested, smelling of soap. There are love bites on his collar and upper arm; he silently points them out, to make Wufei smile.

'Sorry,' he says.

'Are you kidding? These are trophies.' Duo slides his arms about Wufei from behind. His chin comes to rest on Wufei's shoulders. There's something wonderfully-- validating about it.

Sex is different with Duo. Of course. With Trowa, it was a mutual satisfaction, almost a routine that had made the bad days bearable and the good days a little better. With Duo, there's just somehow more going on, accommodating his handicap and his energy at cross-purposes, finding a tenderness when he least expects it, and these gentle quiet moments after, when he and Trowa would have talked about work instead. He had long ago stopped wondering what Trowa would have been like with Quatre, but it creeps in on him, that perhaps they'd have been rather like this.

Duo stirs when he reaches for the ginger powder. 'Smells good,' he says briefly. 'By the way, Studly Do-Right, you were amazing.'

He turns to give Duo his most incredulous look. 'Amazing... I'm not looking for hallelujahs.'

'Well you were.' Duo lets go.

Then-- approximately-- he suffers a flicker of guilt for his own disbelief. Duo may have treaded the edge of truth in his choice of praise, but the sentiment was real, and Wufei's instinct for ruination had leapt right to the forebrain. It is, of course, far too difficult to apologise, so instead he borrows a Duoism and comes at it sideways. 'Trowa said you thought I was a tightass.' He achieves, at least, an appropriate lightness of tone.

Duo's perching on the table behind him. 'I did. Back during the war. And you were. But you loosened up a lot over the years. And I guess I got a little more serious, maybe.' A modest acknowledgment that he wasn't always the evolved human being he could have been. Wufei survived pranks that proves it.

'We all grew up,' he amends, liking better how that sounds.

'Yeah.'

'He used to tease me about you.'

Silence, for long enough that Wufei replays the conversation to himself and realises he's just mentioned Trowa twice in as many sentences and has been thinking about him since nearly the moment his trousers came off.

He's slow, turning off the burner, setting the tofu aside to wait on the rice. The cooker is steaming busily. It's night outside, the street lamp illuminating the lines of cars and the rowhouses facing. The silence of his own apartment registers bit by bit, a slow seeping awareness. Duo's shoes, one tumbled on its side, sit just beyond the door. He never has to ask Duo to remove them. He always remembers.

Trowa never had.

As if Duo somehow knows his thoughts-- Wufei thinks he really might, at that-- Duo capitulates with grace and game. He says, simply, 'What'd he say?'

He can breathe again. Swallow. Remarkable things, all. 'That it was inevitable.'

'Wha-- this?'

'Yes.'

'I don't know about inevitable, but then, I'm not incredibly sure I've got the right definition for that word.'

'He was right anyway.' He's smiling now. Duo knows all the right notes sometimes. 'Sit down. Food's ready.'

Duo doesn't move. Instead, he says, 'Why don't you tell me about him?'

So much for breathing. He tries to shrug it away. 'Won't that be a little weird?'

Duo mimics him, in a sharp rise and fall of his shoulder. 'I'd still like to hear you talk.'

'We could talk about other things.' Desperation breeds inspiration. 'We should go somewhere.'

Duo's face lights. 'Yeah?' Pleased, excited. Wufei feels relief.

'Yes. Somewhere away from all of this so we can figure out how to be together.' Without any of the past getting in the way.

'Yeah. We should do that.' Duo's all but squirming. 'We can file on Monday for the time. Maybe tomorrow we could look online for some ideas.'

'Is there anywhere you've ever wanted to go?'

'I don't know. I've never really been anywhere on a real holiday. Some place with history, maybe, and nice museums.'

'History?' It's all been flash-footing til now, but that catches him in surprise.

'Yeah, like, old buildings, and... well, old stuff.'

'You never said you were interested in history.' He's pleased, now. Much as he enjoys Duo's company, he's never believed they have much in common.

'It's just kind of a hobby. I read a lot on my time off.'

'So do I. Since I was a kid.'

'Oh, well, since two Christmases ago, for me.' Duo's expression is abashed. 'Quatre gave me--'

He drags in oxygen. 'Quatre gave you what?'

Duo nervously wets his lips, with a flicker of eyes gone dark and dilated. 'A book on the history of the city.'

'He always knows what people need.'

'Yeah.'

'You-- can talk about him. It doesn't make me uncomfortable.'

'I thought it might,' Duo says quietly. 'Sorry.'

'There aren't any ghosts here now.'

Lie. Duo calls him on it, but gently. He taps his chest, and says, 'There's always ghosts everywhere. Always.'

Wufei uncomfortably touches his tattoo. 'Trowa made me promise. I wouldn't have given my word if I couldn't mean it.'

'Hell of a thing to ask.'

Remarkably alike-- the look on Duo's frowning face now, and the look Trowa had worn, accepting his word. Eleven months.

'It wasn't unfair. And it was what he needed. So I did.'

Duo's finger pulls a lock of hair between his teeth. Mumbling around it, he admits, 'I don't know if I could have done it.'

'Maybe he wouldn't have asked the same thing of you.' With a soft click the cooker completes its task. Wufei turns to unplug it, reaches for the spoon to stir the cooked rice. 'I've carried ghosts around with me for most of my life,' he says briskly, and gets down two plates for their meal. 'I nearly let them destroy me. Trowa didn't want to be one of them.'

Dark eyes. Busy teeth, destroying the ends of hair that had once been lovely. Wufei rescues the lock, and places a kiss on Duo's lips in mute apology. 'We'll figure it out,' he says, and perhaps Duo doesn't have the heart to contradict him, because he only nods.

 

**

 

They've been sleeping together for a month when Wufei initiates a new Conversation.

Farewell, My Concubine is back on the shelf, but it doesn't hold the same interest for him. He's attempting to give As I Lay Dying his attention, but he's already read it and finds it difficult to sympathise with characters who continually made stupid or selfish decisions. He supposes there's an argument to be made about the place the narrative defines through such people, but the simple mindedness, the single-mindedness of it all is too repellent, too alien to Wufei's cultural aesthetics. One earned heavenly reward by living a decent life, not plunging headlong into destruction.

'I got a new one,' Duo says absently. He's in the kitchen-- sometimes he can spend all evening there-- it smells like grilling fish. The bar-top partition between kitchen and den is covered with cutting boards and fresh sliced vegetables, egg cartons and brightly citrusy lemons.

'Where is it?'

'End of the third shelf.'

He has yet to solve the puzzle of Duo's organisational habits. The book is indeed new, though, spine still uncracked and perfect. So Long A Letter, by Mariama Bâ. 'What's it about?' he asks.

'This lady, Ramatoulaye, writes about her husband getting a second wife.'

An unusual choice, for Duo. He suspects Duo of attempting to expand his horizons. He's careful of the spine, so pristinely whole, as he opens it.

If over the years, and passing through the realities of life, dreams die, I still keep in tact the memories, the salt of remembrance.

I conjure you up. The past is reborn, along with its procession of emotions. I close my eyes. Ebb and tide of feeling: heat and dazzlement, the woodfires, the sharp green mango, bitten into in turns, a delicacy in our greedy mouths. I close my eyes...

We walked the same paths from adolescence to maturity, where the past begets the present.

Wufei wets his lips. He says, 'Why don't you trust me with them?'

A pause in the muted bustly kitchen sounds; then Duo clangs tongs on the grill, and turns to face him. He answers, 'I don't not trust you with them.'

No pretending not to understand him, at least. Wufei closes the book between his palms. 'Then what's going on?' he says directly. 'You see them. I'm never included. I miss their friendship.'

Duo's face is quite still. Wufei can't read his thoughts. He can't read Duo's body language, because there is none, just Duo standing still when he could have sworn Duo didn't know how to.

'I thought you liked hanging out with me,' is the response, when he's beginning to wonder if there will be any. 'I thought you didn't want to see Quat.'

'I like spending time with you. But sometimes you think too much.'

Motion, finally. Wufei puts the book away and follows him, turning the wall and entering the kitchen. Trout on the grill, the fillets spread with some sort of yellowish marinade and steam rising in wisps over it. Duo isn't gentle turning them, and one of the fillets breaks apart. 'I was never angry with Quatre.'

'He's not as strong as you.'

Wufei is ready with the brisk retort he hadn't thought of the last time. 'That's nonsense,' he says. 'He's not a broken toy. Stop coddling him. I have no reason to want to hurt him.'

'I know that, but it doesn't mean you won't. He spends half his day already thinking about how he fucked you over without even knowing he was doing it. It's just worse when he can actually see you to project his guilt on.'

'So I've lost his friendship over this? And he's lost mine? That's insane. And Trowa would be the first to say so.'

Another thing he'd wished he'd said the last time. But when he was plotting it for this time, he didn't quite imagine the way it would be when Duo heard it. The explosion happens, messy and furious.

'Sometimes I'm so sick of hearing what Trowa would or wouldn't do!' Duo snaps, and then freezes with his hand at his mouth. 'I mean-- I mean we can't be-- keep living by what Trowa-- I mean--'

Wufei shakes his head, the most he can manage. 'What.'

'I mean that's the point, isn't it?' Duo rallies with a deep breath, but he's as pale as Wufei feels. 'That he's not here to say it. And it's like he IS here, because everyone's always saying “Trowa would do this” or “Trowa would say that”.'

Not everyone. Him. That point is quite well made. Or is Duo this bad with Quatre too? 'Better if we looked to Duo for advice and guidance, apparently. Because you have all the answers about how we should go on. Who are you protecting? Quatre? I don't think he needs protection from every friendship but yours.'

Duo endures that with belligerent silence. Wufei crosses his arms over his chest.

'I'm just saying,' Duo says, surprisingly evenly. 'He's not as strong as you are. He never was. If he was, you wouldn't ever have been with Trowa, and this wouldn't be an issue. So maybe I am protecting him. But I'm not wrong.'

'How long before you trust Quatre to live his life on his own?'

'I heard what you said to him at the funeral.' The smoke alarm beeps. Duo turns his back on Wufei, tongs in hand again. He throws the trout to a plate and waves a tea towel under the ceiling censor.

'I shouldn't have,' Wufei says. 'But you gave that more weight than it deserved. It was a very difficult day.'

'I know it was. It was difficult for everyone. But not everyone had the reasons you had to be that angry. And you were. That angry.'

'I haven't been since. That's not a grudge I ever wanted to carry.'

'Don't make this my fault!' The towel flops more than it bounces off the counter. 'You'd barely leave your home if you didn't have to work. You barely leave even when I ask you to. And you haven't exactly been reaching out to them, have you? It's not just me keeping you away from them. You know I go there. In an entire fucking year, all you had to say was Hey, I'd like to come along. Or pick up the fucking phone and call them. You'd rather stand there and blame me for tying you to a chair?'

They're both tense with temper now. 'The drama's not necessary. So please stop.' He's the one who wants to explode now. He's glad Duo's not looking, because he knows his own expression would escalate the argument. 'From the beginning it was the four of you. Always. I've always been separate. I don't feel sorry for myself. But I'm aware of it. And I'm not the fighter you are.'

'The hell.'

'The discussion is over.'

'What discussion? The part where you got to say everything you wanted and it's all on me because you're too, whatever, too weak-willed to fix things for yourself? Yeah, that was a real deep soul-search.'

'Oh, by all means, tell me how it is, Duo. You've always been expert at defining all of our failings.'

'Fuck you. If you're mad at me, have the balls to say so, don't play like this is just crap about Quatre. Where are you going?'

Not particularly fair, but neither of them are observing the lines now. 'I can't be with you right now,' Wufei says, intending it to hurt, and glad when it lands with evident pain. 'I'm going out.'

'Fine,' Duo says. 'Go.'

'Fine.' He jerks at the door and slams it behind him, exercises that make him feel a little better, a little more justified, even if he does look the fool by storming out of Duo's apartment. He has nowhere to actually go but home, and he doesn't want to be there, so he ends out driving aimlessly, not quite to the grocery, not quite to his gym, and turns around when he realises he's headed toward Preventers Plaza. Zechs Merquise is back in town, and he hates the way the man smirks at him when they pass in the halls. Zechs had even dared to ask him how Duo was, and when Wufei had answered stiffly he was fine, Zechs had so-innocently added he was glad, because Duo needed a firm hand. Wufei knew plenty well what he meant by that, and it had been fortunate that Noin had appeared just then and driven him off before he could say something he'd regret later.

It's an open secret that his recent promotion has more to do with his history with Une than any true qualifications. The rumour is he'll have any department he wants, and what he wants is the Mobile Suit Corps, that he has grand plans to revolutionise the unit-- whatever. Duo had laughed when he'd repeated that, and teased that he was just jealous he didn't get to wear the pretty uniforms, too.

The wonder is that Duo's not jealous. He's angling for promotion, too. But no-one will put a cripple in the Mobile Suit Corps.

Except that Duo isn't like that. Bitter or jealous ever. The flip about Trowa is the worst Wufei has heard from him in years.

Which makes it all the worse that he honestly believes he has to shield Quatre from Wufei. But as Duo himself said it's been a year, and Wufei was hardly a ravening beast at the funeral. They'd slept in the same bed, in Trowa's bed, after the wake. And if that had been the last contact they've had alone since then, well, maybe he wasn't quite ready for it-- but he is now. And it's not Duo's decision to make. Duo takes too much on himself, presumes too much about people. Like this stupid tattoo he can't quite bring himself to look at--

When he pulls into Duo's complex two hours later, the lights from Duo's flat are out, and his car is gone. Duo really doesn't have faith in Wufei's ability to forgive.

 

**

 

The ringing of his doorbell is a unique experience. No-one's rung him in months; the mailman leaves everything at the front desk, and the super always calls before coming over.

And Duo has always come in with him, so to find him standing there in the corridor, unsummoned and unannounced, is quite the surprise.

He looks awful, too-- his hair is a slept-in birds' nest, and he's wearing Wufei's least favourite shirt, the pink cotton with the bold letters 'JESUS IS MY COCK-BLOCKER.' His shorts are wrinkled and the hems have stains, as if he wore them wading somewhere in a pond, and he's got the old prosthetic on, the one with the computerised knee that hurts his hip. 'You only wear that one if--' Wufei begins.

Duo interrupts him. 'We're going to Quat's for dinner.'

He sucks in a breath. 'What?'

'Move it or lose it.'

'Why are you doing this?'

'Last night at all familiar?'

'Did we resolve anything? Or is this your way of proving you're a bigger man than I?' The hot words are scarcely out of his mouth before he regrets them. It does them no good to keep yelling at each other, particularly in the hallway. He reaches for Duo, but falls short of touching his arm. 'I'm sorry.'

Duo's face is stiff. 'Whatever. Come on.'

'Duo. Please.'

'Car's still running.'

Quatre's. Dinner at Quatre's. That was coming to terms with a vengeance.

Well-- what else was he going to do tonight, anyway?

'Fine.' He grabs his jacket, glad he always makes an effort to be presentable, even without plans. He checks for his keys and wallet, though Duo is already stumping off to the lift, and he has to jog to catch up. He tries to speak, on the ride back to the lobby, but Duo is stubbornly glaring at the mirrored walls and Wufei can't think of anything to say, anyway. It's worse in the car. Duo has NPR on, loud enough to be obnoxious, and even if that weren't signal enough he dangles a box of orange juice from his mouth by the straw, eyes dead focussed on the road.

Wufei's apartment is only ten minutes from Trowa's neighbourhood; it had been planned that way, after all. So when they're about to pass the shopping centre, Wufei stirs himself to speak up. He asks, 'Would you mind stopping so I can buy a bottle of wine? Or something?'

'I brought one.' In the backseat. It's even nicely bagged. It will be an odd gift, coming from Duo in his current state.

'That's yours. I should bring something. As a guest.'

'It's for you to give them. No-one drinks that much. One bottle is fine.'

'How much do I owe you?'

'I want to listen to this story.' Duo twists the dial until the volume is at ear-pricking proportion. Even if he wanted to be heard, Wufei doubts he could be, now. So he stops trying.

Despite himself it feels desperately familiar, the back way into Trowa's subdivision. He remembers each of the large shade-trees growing in every yard, the houses that are brick or siding or garretted, single-storeyed or doubled with no pattern in the planning at all, white or yellow or red or olive as each owner wants, not uniform like the complexes Duo and Wufei live in. There's Trowa's, one level, with a slight roll to the yard and three trees, not just one. There's a tyre swing hanging from the oak now, that's new. A girl's training bicycle, with shiny ribbons spilling from the handlebars and a pink basket on the front, forgotten by the driveway.

Duo pulls in and is out his door almost before he brakes. Wufei is slower, so that as he's standing Duo is already shoving the wine at him, and then he's clattering up the steps to bang on the door. Wufei shuts the car door and follows him.

And there is Quatre, casual as Wufei's ever seen him, in khakis and a Preventers sweatshirt that surely belongs to Heero. He's all bright smile as he greets his friend-- 'Oh, Duo, you're right on-- Wufei,' and the smile vanishes into startlement.

Wufei realises, far too late, that Duo's led him into an ambush. 'Hi,' he tries, and has to clear his throat. 'Duo picked up wine.' He attempts, and fails, to smile. 'You had no idea we were coming.'

'Uh-- Duo was--' Duo is pushing past Quatre, quite rudely, and Wufei steps in closer to see that one of the twins has come to the door. Jared. Duo scoops him up and tosses, and the little boy squeals with delight. That's why Duo is wearing the motorised prosthetic-- he always wears that when he babysits.

Which means Duo brought him here to leave him here. Alone with Quatre.

And Heero. Heero is standing just inside, too. Holding out child-sized backpacks, three of them. 'Hello, Wufei,' he says, as surprised as Quatre.

'Snot-bums, hurry up!' Duo hollers. 'We're gonna miss the clown at the pizza party.'

Wufei swallows dryly. He says, 'I didn't mean for this to happen.'

'Uh-- come in.' Quatre moves aside for him, holds the door. Duo has collected Olivia, who-- Wufei blushes with remembered shame-- smiles in apparent delight to see him. Last is Mira, who is entire inches taller than when Wufei saw her last, and when did she abandon her fluffy princess dresses for playsuits and such tomboyish short hair?

'We'll be back at nine,' Duo says. 'See ya.'

'Duo, wait.' Duo ignores Wufei's snag at his elbow, so Wufei follows him out again, trying not to trip over the children who don't walk in straight lines. 'Don't leave, okay? Stay.'

No answer. Duo loads the children into the car seats in Heero's SUV. He never looks Wufei in the eye as he crosses to the driver's side. A moment later, the wagon bumps down the drive, turns right in the road, and then they're gone.

'Wufei?' Quatre asks.

He drags in a deep breath. 'We-- had a little disagreement last night.'

Quatre's fine golden eyebrows are raised. But he doesn't comment. 'Well-- come in. Heero's cooking.'

The house has the air of two men who had been looking forward to a night alone. It's not been cleaned for guests-- there are building blocks for a massive construction project in the middle of the floor on a play sheet, and dolls left in scattered disarray on the couch. Quatre seems faintly embarrassed, but he smiles on cue, and it seems genuine.

Of course it's genuine. It's Quatre.

'You're looking well,' Wufei says awkwardly.

'Thank you. I think Earth agrees with me.' There are nerves showing, but Quatre settles them with a thrust of his shoulders. 'Shall we cool the wine?'

'I have no idea. This all was Duo's orchestration.'

'This is a new one, certainly. Well, come sit down. Wine?'

'That would probably be a very good idea.'

Nerves showing in himself, he fears. He wasn't ready. And yet it feels almost dreamily easy-- small talk, pulling back from the hints of really explaining anything, addressing anything. The house is different. When Trowa lived here it was all half-way done, the kitchen only partly renovated, the den still builder's white because Trowa could never decide what to paint it, and it eventually hadn't mattered. The couch had been the only couch Trowa had ever bought, worse for the wear each year, and the carpet had borne a distinct tread pattern.

New carpet, now, and plush rugs over it, layered for cushion and lush in their bright red and gold threads. New furniture, things he knows from Quatre's home in L4, and things he's never seen that compromises the stuffy style of the Winner Estate with a livable, more utilitarian inclination. Wallpaper, stripes in soft rose and burgundy. Art on the walls, potted plants on every surface, an aquarium lit and glowing in the corner. The kitchen Quatre leads him to is dark green with saffron trimming. It's a beautiful home, now, the home Trowa had imagined it could be for them, when they were young and still imagined things like-- time.

It's almost a shock to see Heero standing over the stove, not Trowa.

'You've made some improvements,' Wufei says lamely. His nerves are worse than he thought. 'It looks good.'

'Thank you,' Heero replies. 'You wouldn't believe how I had to fight for it.'

'Why?'

Quatre seems flustered. He has a corkscrew to the wine bottle, and it pops as he pulls it free. 'You don't want to rush into redecorating. Glasses are in the cupboard behind you.'

He gets them, three gold-rimmed bulbs on long stems. 'He would never have wanted you to maintain this place like a shrine.' Quatre won't quite respond to that, but Heero steps into the breach with a grace he wouldn't have shown a year ago.

'I hope you eat tofu,' he says peacefully. 'We're trying to use it up. It's a new recipe. Marinated-- orange and a mushroom soy-- floured and baked, and a ginger sauce. There's plenty of broccoli and rice as well.'

'It smells very good.' Quatre hands him back a full glass of wine, and extends one for Heero, too, before turning to the refrigerator for a bottle of sparkling water. Heero leaves the sauce cooking low and joins them for a brief clink of glasses. He even leans in to murmur in Quatre's ear. Whatever he says, it makes Quatre smile, and Heero kisses his jaw tenderly.

Watching them, Wufei feels very strange. No-one really questioned when they were suddenly living here together-- there's been so few questions aired amongst them lately that there hardly seems any point to conversation at all, sometimes. He's never thought to assume what kind of relationship they have-- he tries not to think of them here at all, really. It fills him with confusing feelings to see them acting like a couple, acting married, living together. Why can Quatre give this now to Heero, this beautiful life, these beautiful children and their beautiful house, this open affection with each other-- why should he have this now when he couldn't give it to Trowa? Trowa had-- deserved it. And shut himself off to others, to Wufei, because he couldn't have it. It's like Quatre has stolen someone else from him now, luring him in with whatever it is about Quatre that people want, need like oxygen.

And he hates this pettiness in himself. Quatre is his friend, a beloved friend. It's so unworthy to want to hate him for doing nothing more than trying to live. With Heero, also his friend. The oldest friends. He wasn't lying when he told Duo he missed them. Even standing right here in the kitchen with them he misses them; he feels so isolated from them, though, and he doesn't know how to say it.

Quatre looks up. His eyes skip over Wufei, concerned. But Heero distracts him, both of them, moving to the oven for the tofu, and the moment when Wufei felt he might have been able to breach it all passes.

Instead, he says, 'I guess I don't have to ask if you're happy.'

Quatre blushes, easily thrown off the scent in his own embarrassment. 'I apologise.'

'No, don't. It's good to see. I've been worried about you.'

Quatre plays with his glass, fingernail picking at a chip in the rim. 'I've thought of you, too. I haven't seen you since--' The night Wufei punched a reporter for him, as it happens.

'I shouldn't have stayed away.'

'I understand.'

'Do you? I didn't.' He swallows deeply from the wine. He doesn't usually drink pinot noir, and it burns a little in his mouth, his throat. 'What do I have to do to earn your trust again?'

Quatre looks wounded, as open-faced as Duo always is, every flashing thought so thoroughly available to the audience. 'My trust? You have it.'

'Have I?'

'Of course.' Distressed now. 'You-- why would you think--'

Heero's turned to look. His lowered eyebrows and unblinking eyes convey the unwisdom of causing any difficulty.

He drinks from the wine again. 'You're more generous than I wou-- have been.'

Quatre moves to the table. He sits slowly, feeling his way into the chair, carefully setting his glass on the mat before him. 'You've earned your distance.'

'That's not true. And in any case, I don't want it. We were companions once.'

Friendship. Heero's there, his hand on Quatre's shoulder, and Quatre moves to touch Wufei's wrist. The only one missing--

Walked out the door with the children, under the impression that Wufei's dumped him.

'Wufei,' Heero says then. 'Did you see the interview?'

He had almost entirely forgot the existence of Arne Belasko and the interview. It's not a pleasant reminder. 'No, I... missed that. I thought it's been a while? Did it just come out?'

'It takes them a few months to devote an entire issue to an innocent victim,' Quatre mutters dryly.

Heero stretches a long arm for the counter, and comes back with a glossy magazine. He passes it mutely to Wufei, who takes it with significant trepidation.

The picture on the cover startles him. He'd half expected some horrid picture of his fist impacting Belasko's face. But it's more like a portrait-- family portrait. The picture is of Quatre, Heero, and Olivia in the den Wufei can see right through the kitchen. They're all smiling, relaxed, caught in a candid moment as Quatre fixes the collar of Olivia's school blazer, and Heero's eyes are crinkled in a deep contentment.

'It's a lovely picture,' he says sincerely.

'I think so too.' Heero seems satisfied with his response. Or with the easing of tensions at the table, perhaps. He goes back to the food, donning paisley oven mitts to remove the tray of tofu from the stove. 'I asked for the original,' he adds. 'I'd like to frame it.'

'You're making a good family.'

'And now the world knows it too.'

The waterglass makes three precise revolutions in Quatre's hands. 'Yes,' he says. 'You were right. It was time.'

Heero's eyes rest on his lover for a moment, before the flick back to Wufei. 'I think the interview is very positive. Considering what a hothead the reporter was, the copy is good.'

Wufei skims the article on page eight. There's quite a spread of photographs in the middle; Quatre in the office, Heero with the twins, all of them together with schoolwork spread over the big bed in the master room. The captions are all words like 'normal life' and quotes on the theme of 'not going to hide our family'. So Heero forgives him, then? And Quatre seems to have been talked around. If he was ever angry. Quatre's always so careful not to be angry with anyone.

There's a picture of Trowa, on the last page. It's an older picture, from before he was sick. Wufei almost can't remember that full face and thick hair, the tan healthy skin. Yet, strangely, it doesn't make his throat close to see it. It doesn't make his stomach ache, or his eyes burn. It makes him-- wistful, a little, or melancholy, but it doesn't really hurt anymore like it used to.

His eyes find the date in the upper corner. The magazine came out last Friday. Which makes today the fifth.

Trowa's been gone for a year. It's been a whole year without him.

'Marina even sent a note.' Heero sets a deep fragrant bowl on the table, and lays a mat and plate and chopsticks before Wufei. 'She complimented the writing. And asked why we're living in such a tiny-- what did she call it?'

'Ant farm,' Quatre supplies.

Wufei laughs. 'She always was a snotty bitch.'

Heero grins as he sits. The smile looks good on him. It's been so long since Wufei's seen him do it.

'And you?' Quatre asks him. 'How have you been?'

There's little enough to answer there. 'Arguing with Duo,' he admits, since that's no surprise now. But... He touches the flame tattoo under his heart. He traces the edges, knows the boundaries of it by heart. In some ways he feels Duo drew them there. Marked him, in profound ways. It wasn't about the going wild, though the theory held true, in the short term. It's more that taking the risk brought him out of a life there was no way to continue living, the life he'd had with Trowa, and into the new life he can have, if he just reaches for it.

He says, 'I think I'm planning to ask him to move in with me.'

Quatre says, 'Excuse me?'

'Duo.'

'I know, but--'

He takes too large a sip of wine. Dutch courage. 'I find I need him near.'

Heero and Quatre share a glance. Quatre says, 'I know he'll be glad.'

'He's out of his mind, but I'm lucky he seems to want it.'

'So you've finally talked with him,' Heero approves.

'We talk all the time.' Quatre's eyebrows are up again, rather high now actually. 'He spends more time at my apartment than his anyway.'

'Don't let us keep you from eating.' Quatre drinks his water with great concentration.

'You object?'

'I think he'd be there tonight if you gave the word. I'm happy for you both.'

'Thanks.' Heero doesn't seem to get it. Quatre's making great effort at eating. 'What am I missing here, Quat?'

Quatre exhales. 'Nothing. Heero, the rice is a little dry. Could you get more sauce?'

'Please don't dance around this.'

'If I may suggest, it's not something either of us ought to barge into.'

'Oh.' Heero looks scolded. Wufei supposes that's how he feels, too, except more than that he feels in the dark.

'Just talk to him. Before you ask him.'

It's not until after dinner that Wufei has the chance to pursue Quatre. Heero proves competent at asking a run of questions which, however intentioned, keep Wufei occupied in relating the ins and outs of the last year of Preventers activity. But at last they sit with tea in the living room, and Heero is doing the washing-up. Wufei seizes his chance. There will be time to make up with Heero later; in any event, he was never really angry with Heero, so there's nothing to forgive but a year of avoidance. Quatre, though, deserves an explanation, and Wufei intends to make him listen to it.

'I've spent a lot of time thinking, these past months,' he opens. Quatre doesn't interrupt, though he lifts a hand to his lips as if to stop himself. Wufei clutches his tea. 'All I've had to do is think. No-one even had the decency to launch a coup, this winter.'

Quatre smiles automatically. 'Did you reach any conclusions?'

'Yes.' Not the easiest thing he's ever done, spitting this out coherently. He wets his lips with the assam. 'I've been thinking a great deal about why Trowa ever brought me into his life to start. When it was obvious that he was never going to love anyone but you.'

There's a tightness of pain in Quatre's face then. But he doesn't interrupt.

'And there are plenty of reasons,' Wufei goes on. 'We had work in common. Shared history. Shared friends. And if we shared an emotional-- emotional reticence, that's because we both wanted the walls in place. But those are all external circumstances. He could have had that with any number of people, or Heero or Duo too, if they'd been amenable. So I've been thinking that the reason he chose me is that I'm like you.'

The hand drops from Quatre's mouth to his lap, to wind around the little china cup. 'Like me?'

'Not in that we're alike. But that we share some-- unexpected qualities. Not least in that we both cared a great deal about Trowa, and whether he could admit it or not, he always needed someone to care about him.'

'Yes.' Quatre's voice is throaty. He coughs to clear it. 'I'm sorry I didn't know about you and him. I would have been happy for you.'

'The way that I'm... happy you and he had even the little time you did.'

Blue eyes search his. 'Thank you,' Quatre says soundlessly.

He finishes his tea in quick swallows, before it cools. Quatre refills it for him from the pot. 'Thank you,' Wufei echoes him. 'And for having me in your home tonight, unexpected or otherwise. I've always felt like--' This, somehow, is even less easy to say. 'I've always felt like-- like I was on the fringes with everyone. Being here, it makes me feel more a part of you again.'

'I could point out that our positions are quite switched, now.' Quatre tops off his own tea. 'I left Earth. Left all of you. Went off and had a whole other life.'

'It never really made you separate. Not in the ways that matter.'

'No?' he murmured sadly. 'If I'd been a part of you, I would have known about Trowa more than three days before he died, because you wouldn't have had to call me and tell me what everyone else already knew.'

'Trowa shut all of us out. Not just you.'

Quatre lifts his lips again. 'I suppose all I'm saying is that your feelings of being on the outside have more to do with your perception, perhaps, than reality.'

'Perception is everything when you're in the middle of it.'

'Yes, it is. So make a leap, Wufei.'

'I think I have. Haven't we both?'

Quatre's eyes stray to the kitchen. He lets out a big breath, his head falling back to the couch cushion behind him. 'So many days I wake up, lie there staring at the ceiling, wishing it were all over so I won't wake up the next day just like that.'

'I think...' Wufei wets his lips, and sets his cup aside. 'I think that passes. I think that heals. And when it does, it's all right to let it. Holding on to punish yourself does you no good, nor Heero.' Nor Duo. Odd, that two men so impatient had waited for them for so long, so quietly. So loyally.

'It's not the way I would have chosen for it to happen,' Quatre says. 'But Trowa's had his last wish, hasn't he? We've all still got each other.'

'I was afraid we wouldn't, but yes, we seem to.'

'Holding harder, at least for a while.'

'Holding harder isn't the worst thing. For any of us.'

'No.' Quatre smiles tiredly. 'Stay for dinner again soon?'

'Soon.' Heero's finished and come to join them, lingering in a lean against the wall not to interrupt them. But Wufei addresses himself to them both. 'There's a park in this neighbourhood,' he says. 'Maybe Duo and I could join you for a family cookout this weekend.'

'That would be great,' Heero says. 'We barely see Duo unless he's babysitting. I guess he spends a lot of time with you now. More, if he moves in with you.'

It's been an anxious night, fraught with too much pressure to go well, so Wufei cedes a little dignity to ask what's haunting him. 'You don't think he'll agree, do you?'

Quatre and his lover share a glance. Then Quatre makes a slashing motion of his hand, and bypasses the quibble. 'The fight tonight with Duo--'

'No, I was fighting with him yesterday. He was fighting with me tonight.'

That makes Quatre smile. 'I know it's hard to remember when he's being like that, but it's only because it's so important to him that the rest of us be happy.'

'He worries too much about that.'

'Yes,' Quatre repeats, as if it's somehow quite significant. 'He does.'

Yes, he does... He worries about it quite a lot, really. In fact quite a lot of what he does is really for other people, like shoving them all together tonight to force them to forgive each other. But in a key way it's for himself, too-- a desperate search for validation, as if spiting his own face for another's good will prove he's a good man after all. That's not the entirety of what the tattoo was about, and equating it to the tattoo is minimising it in ways that Wufei would never consider, but it's still a shared experience that was, in essence, a vote of confidence from Wufei for Duo. His approval. A physical representation of respect, regard and trust. All of it true. And Duo's been looking to him for that, him, for this entire year, at his side doggedly doing his best for Wufei, needing to be seen doing it, needing his trust, his acknowledgment. Needing to be needed. Needing to be--

Ah.

'I think I understand,' he says slowly.

 

By the time nine o'clock arrives, Wufei has much to think about.

Not, however, what Duo seems to think he's still thinking about. Their eyes meet, Duo's tight and defencive, Wufei's dipping in a smile. The tension goes out of Duo's spine.

'How was pizza?' Wufei asks gravely.

'Greasy.' Duo shoves a confetti-covered gift bag to the floor. 'Get it in gear. I'm tired and I want to get into an ice bath.'

It's gruff. Wufei only nods. He says good night to Heero and Quatre, good night to the children who go so far as to hug him, if they even remember him after a year. Duo waits outside, shifting from foot to foot. He really is in pain.

'You shouldn't wear that leg,' Wufei says, as he's strapping on the safety belt. He would have offered to drive, but he knows the mood Duo's in, locked-down and masquerading as anger.

'You try running after a seven-year-old, TWO seven-year-olds, without a motorised knee. They still your friends?'

Duo won't even look at him. Wufei rubs his chest, over the tattoo. 'Yes,' he says. 'But I really wish you'd stayed. It's not right without you there.'

'Wufei.' Duo rubs his nose. 'Thank you.'

They're at the shopping centre again. Wufei imagines it all looks quite different, now, with these new eyes in his head. Newly opened eyes. He breaks the silence, and says, 'You don't always have to be everything to everyone.'

Duo glances at him. 'Okay.'

'You won't lose us if you stop.'

'I know.'

'And?' Wufei prompts.

'And what?'

'So why don't you trust us enough to let go a little?'

Duo rolls his eyes broadly. 'You with the trust routine.'

'What's that mean?'

'Why do you always think I don't trust you? And doesn't you continually asking me why I don't indicate that you don't trust me?'

'Because you try too damned hard.'

'What the fuck else am I going to do? Not try at all? God, Wufei, I don't know what the hell to do to make you happy. I just want you to be happy and I'm sorry I'm not the right guy.'

'You've given me what I needed,' he says. They're entering his complex. 'You're allowed to be angry with me.'

'I'm not. Angry.'

'You give a good impression of it.'

'You're mad at me.'

'I'm frustrated. Not angry.'

'Whatever, Sophocles.' Duo fiddles with his handicap brake, making the car rock as they approach an empty spot-- a visitor spot, not the handicapped that he usually takes. 'I figured you'd be angry and that would kind of be it, for me.'

'Be “it” for you? I'm not going to desert you if you let me know I'm not cutting it. That may be the stupidest thing you've ever said.'

'Think back real hard, and I'm sure you can come up with some better examples.'

Wufei relents. Quatre wanted them to talk first, but this is shaping up to sound like the same old back-and-forth. Gently, he says, 'I told Quatre that I was planning to ask you to move in with me.'

Duo brakes hard and they skid to a halt. 'The hell!' Wufei exclaims, digging his fingers into the door and the dash for balance. 'What's wrong with you?'

'Move IN with you?'

'Why not?' His heart is still pounding from the scare. It's difficult to relax, too, with Duo staring at him.

Duo is staring at him. Just staring.

'I'm serious,' Wufei says. 'Move in with me.'

Duo wets his lips and turns off the car. 'I'm kind of terrified. Let me work through it.'

He'd been hoping for instantaneous agreement. He steadfastly refuses to feel disappointment. 'Of course.'

'Okay. Well. It's yes, by the way. I guess. If you don't think better of it. You can take it back if you decide I-- if you want, for whatever reason. Without having to tell me why.'

'I'm not going to take it back.'

'I'm just saying.'

'You have even less confidence than I do. It's insane.'

'I hide it better.' He's red with embarrassment. Or something.

Wufei says, 'Maybe it's time for both of us to stop hiding things from each other.'

'Why now? I don't mean the hiding things stuff. I mean-- why ask me now? Not a month ago, when we started screwing?'

He looks out the dark window. They should be inside for this, or at least somewhere Duo can't try to make a run for it if it turns into a panic attack. He rubs his mouth, and says, 'I was thinking, tonight... looking at Quatre and Heero... they're so happy.'

'They're trying. They're making it happen.'

A weird sort of power. All this time, it's been Duo who knew everything. Wufei bites his lip against the incredulous laugh that bubbles in his chest. Perhaps he's the one who's going to panic, after all.

'So the sex came before the romance,' he says. 'We still had a relationship. We still cared and honoured before we went to bed. Maybe I should-- it's not been conventional, and it could or ought to-- Maybe I should apologise for that.'

'I didn't...' Duo opens his door, so Wufei does too, walking around the front of the car to stand near him in the warm summer night. 'I didn't exactly go into it blind,' Duo says, and fiddles with his keys as if they've got an answer for him.

Wufei covers his hands. 'I never wondered what I'd do without him,' he says, voice scratchy for only a moment. 'Not the way I do now. About you.'

Duo chews his lower lip. His eyes are so open, sometimes.

'Trust me,' Wufei tells him.

Duo throws his door shut. 'Come on. I want to have this conversation in my new pad.'

 

 

'I've been thinking about it, lately,' Wufei says. They have cups of lavender tea each; he doesn't remember anymore where it came from, but lavender is a good tonic for nerves and tension headaches, and both are in abundance on the couch with them.

'Thinking about what?'

Duo has his bag of frozen squid on his thigh, though he hasn't taken off the leg yet and probably won't until he's alone. He hasn't let Wufei do it since that first night they slept together.

'Do you ever see Cassidy?' Wufei asks suddenly.

'Cassidy?' Duo blinks above his tea. 'Tim Cassidy?'

'Since the accident.'

'He moved back to Victoria a couple of years ago. Got married.'

He's not sure what made him ask that. It's sideways of the real topic, which is sideways of the realer one beneath. But they're not ready for that yet. He's not sure they're really ready for this.

'You were always so-- philosophical, about it,' he says. 'The accident.'

Duo's eyes lower. Not to avoid him, but to stop him seeing the questions Duo won't ask him, won't push on him yet. 'Why wouldn't I be?' Duo answers instead. 'Figured I made it longer than I had any right to, considering what my life was like. At least I was in uniform when it happened. If it had just been, you know, like I was walking the street and a bus hit me, I don't know how I would've done with that. As it is...'

'Then you're better adjusted than most people. Than me. I think I would have been suicidal.'

A keen stare then. 'You were the one who was always telling me nothing would hardly change!'

'For you, that statement was true.'

Duo's obviously disturbed. 'It's just a leg,' he says, bewildered.

'Yes. Just a leg. To me, losing that extremity would have represented a loss of strength. Value. To you it was just a piece of flesh. You've survived more profound losses.'

'So have you.'

'Not really.'

'Your wife, your colony. Trowa.' Duo is disturbed, and he's taking Wufei's forearm in a tight grip, as if holding him back from doing anything stupid. 'But look at you, you're fit, you're strong. I'm not saying I didn't have dark moments, but Wufei, it's just a leg. I still have my life. My friends. Those things are strengths, not limbs.'

'Maybe the difference is that none of those things were ever mine. The only thing I could depend on-- rely on, was what I was.' He touches his own chest, his fingers finding the tattoo without his conscious direction. 'Everything but this was like a dream I couldn't quite own. And that's how it was for Trowa, too. The cancer wasn't something he knew how to fight. I couldn't help him, because part of me agreed.'

Duo has his hand now. He just holds it, hard and tight.

Wufei puts his cup down, and Duo's too. Duo's cheek is warm, slightly sandpapery with stubble. 'You never had to endure the same doubts. You will always be complete because your heart is strong.'

Duo shifts minutely, just minutely, but then his lips are pressed fiercely to Wufei's. Wufei closes his eyes with the force of it. 'I'd give it to you in a heartbeat if it would stop you talking like this,' Duo whispers.

'I'm sorry.'

Duo doesn't wait for the words to leave Wufei's mouth. His kisses are swift and deep, insistent. Wufei lets him, lets himself be pushed down against the cushions and-- loved into obedience.

When Duo's head rests on his chest and his cheek turns into Wufei's palm, he says, sadly amused at them both, 'I should have kept quiet.'

'You were being honest.'

'Maybe so, but I should never have said it.'

'You're always supposed to be honest with me! If you start lying to me how can I trust anything you say?' Duo swats him on the thigh. 'And I always trusted you. Don't even start. I want to know everything about you, I want you to always be able to tell me everything.'

Wufei drags in a deep lungful of cleansing oxygen. 'I know you're not Trowa. You're... healthier, I think, for me. So don't think I haven't asked myself a thousand times why I didn't reach for you earlier.'

'It wasn't time yet.' Duo lays his head on Wufei's stomach again. 'I don't have any problem with waiting for fate to get around to me. On the other hand, you are like totally stupidly blind, too.'

'Sometimes I'm stupid.' He finds Duo's lips with his thumb. Duo is smiling, he thinks. 'Very stupid. As you so frequently, so subtly remind me.'

Duo locks an arm around his neck and holds him still for a very long kiss. Wufei thinks that he WAS stupid not to reach for Duo sooner-- if the timing had been better. With a year between him and Trowa's death, he thinks he's starting to get some real perspective on life, on himself. Resolving things with Quatre is good. It was time for that, too. He doesn't want any more resentment, any more petty reliance on the conviction that he'd been given an unfair turn. Duo's right. Fate takes its time, and in the meanwhile, a man has to make the best possible choices. The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything. The greatest magic is transmuting the passions. The greatest goodness is a peaceful mind. He'd needed to love Trowa before Duo. He needed someone who had enough grasp on himself not to be lost in Wufei's internal imbalance. Trowa had been that, but he hadn't had the emotional reserves to reach out. Duo has.

He says, 'I never told him that I loved him.' He takes the tip of Duo's braid, the bristly hairs yielding to something softer and sweeter past the elastic. 'But then he wouldn't have welcomed the words. I won't make that mistake with you.'

Duo's breath catches.

'Do you understand?' Wufei asks, throat tight.

It's hit Duo hard. He can see it. Duo breathes in and out a few times, not easily, and his eyes are-- simultaneously open and begging not to be hurt. When Duo suddenly clambers off him Wufei feels a stab to his gut of fear; but then Duo's hauling him off the couch, his arms wrapping tight around him and lifting him off his feet entirely. They whirl in a crazy circle, twice, three times, until Wufei breathlessly tells him to stop before his leg gives out, and when he lands Duo pins him with his mouth, sucking at him passionately.

He's laughing, Duo's laughing. 'Stop, before I fall. Stop.'

'Make me!' Duo grabs him by the face. Their mouths scrape rawly together. Wufei is hard, just from that, and Duo is too, brushing against him, pushing against him wildly. Some little corner of Wufei's mind complains at the indignity of it all, frowns at the spectacle they're making-- but he tells it to shut up. When fate arrives, a grand gesture or two are perfectly warranted.

So he sweeps Duo up, this time, yanks him right up off his feet. Duo wraps a leg around his waist and nearly distracts him into a traffic accident with the ferocity of his kisses, but they make it into the bedroom. Wufei tumbles them to the bed. 'I can't breathe, stupid.'

'Who needs air?' Duo expertly multitasks, ripping at Wufei's sweater and pushing his hips up into Wufei's. They've had fiery bouts of sex before, but Wufei feels like his entire body is flaming now. He hasn't felt this kind of elation-- ever, maybe. It's like everything's changed, with the words spoken. And he knows all this because Duo is muttering it out nonsensically as they strip each other, hands and tongues and teeth marking every inch as it appears. Duo mouths at his tattoo, and he mouths at Duo's, licking him until he's wet and squirming.

'God,' Duo groans. 'Get on me right now or I'm going to explode!'

Wufei grabs the lube out of the drawer and sloppily slicks him. Duo's jeans are barely to his knees, and Wufei fumbles his off one leg and can't be bothered struggling with the other. With Duo's hands on his waist he straddles Duo. Though he's been there before, somehow this time it feels new and amazing, with none of the little insecurities about how he looks or what Duo's thinking. Well, he knows what Duo's thinking. His mouth is hanging open, kissed to a flushed rose, and his eyes are squeezed shut, his grip on Wufei's hips vise-like.

Then it changes. Duo tips him slowly onto his side. They haven't tried this when Duo still has the leg on, and he wakes enough from his daze to whisper something in worry. Duo's being careful, though, all his weight on the real leg. And it is more intimate-- and easier on Wufei's back. Duo's lips are gentle, this time, feathering down his jaw and neck.

'You're so fucking perfect,' Duo murmurs to him. 'I can't believe you're mine.'

'Believe it.'

Duo reaches past him for the lube and manages to open it one-handed. He spills it into Wufei's palm, rubbing it over his fingers. 'Can you reach me?'

He sees what Duo wants. It won't be deep, but it will connect them that much more. Duo pushes him back into the mattress with a fresh thrust, sucking on his jaw under his ear, guiding Wufei's hand back around his own hip. Duo shudders when he finds the mark. He rubs with his fingers as he wraps his legs securely around Duo's waist, grinding into his belly. They're quiet, now, slow as they rock against each other, wrapped tight in the other's body. He's first, when the burn suddenly engulfs him. Duo's not long after. He clutches at Wufei hard enough to bruise and doesn't relax for almost a minute.

It takes much longer than that for immensity of it all to fade.

Still, eventually, Duo mumbles, 'You need to let me go, or I'll make you sore.'

'Not yet.' His hand slips out of Duo, though, for that same reason. Duo shifts to rest his cheek against Wufei's neck, and Wufei kisses his forehead.

'This is the best day of my life,' Duo whispers.

He kisses Duo again. 'Yes.'

'I mean it. I feel like I just got married.' It ends on a little laugh.

He feels a sense of-- rightness. Ease. With himself and with the man in bed with him. He may never have felt this kind of certainty or clarity. Definitely he never felt it with Trowa. But there'd always been a sense with Trowa that they'd never quite manage to close the circle. He's realising now that the circle had been complete with Duo for a long time.

Quatre will probably be proud of them.

'I'm willing to hyphenate my name,' Duo muses. Wufei laughs. 'Oh, fine. I'll take yours.'

'There's no music in Duo Chang.'

'Wufei,' Duo says. 'Thank you.'


End file.
